A district sports council has spent 62 lakh rupees of an 80 lakh estimate on an indoor hall. A wind study now finds that the roof as designed will stand only on a site sheltered on three sides, that this site is sheltered on none, and that the hall could not be used with safety through the four windy months in which it would be most wanted. The council's chairman says: 'We have already put 62 lakh into it. We must find the remaining 18 lakh and finish.' The chairman's reasoning is most open to criticism because it

The 62 lakh is gone on both branches of the choice — finish and it is gone, stop and it is gone — so it cannot favour either, and the only live question is what 18 lakh more will buy. On the study's findings it buys a hall shut through its best season, which may well be worth less than 18 lakh spent on anything else the council does. Doubting the study would be a real objection if the chairman had raised it, but he does not dispute the study; he argues past it. How the 62 lakh was distributed within the work changes nothing, since none of it comes back. And the chairman's confidence about raising 18 lakh is a separate optimism, not the fault in the step he takes.