Delhi's Commonwealth Tamasha

There are less than 18 months to October 2010, when Delhi will be hosting the Commonwealth games. It will be a world stage where India will exhibit its own progress and panache much like China did it in the 2008 Olympics and Sydney did it in 2006 Commonwealth. However, the road to Commonwealth has been bumpy, patchy and with a reason, non existant. In an earlier post, i had covered the state of (un)readiness of Delhi to host an event so large in magnitude and scale. http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/delhi-running-out-of-time-on.html

Lately, Australian Commonwealth Games Association, has issued a threat to pull out of the Delhi CWG if its security concerns are not met. The security assessment a month before the games would be critical in terms of Australian contingent proceeding with their participation. It comes on the back of the attack on Sri Lankan Team in Pakistan. Earlier, the centre government had sanctioned Rs.78.26 crore for security arrangements (after the Sri Lankan team episode in Pakistan).

While security is the top most in the list of priorities, Infrastructure addition to the city has also been a concern. A few interesting notes about the same:

1. The longest flyover in Delhi, which will connect the 5 kms stretch from Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to the Games Village bypassing Sarai Kale Khan and Nizamuddin West will be built at a cost of Rs.5 billion! This will facilitate movement of 10000 atheletes from the games village to the main stadium. This project is expected to be finished in 24 months!
Please note, the 24 month project starting date (March 2009) onwards would mean that the fly over will not be fully available ort may be partially available for the task it is being built for!

2. Earlier this flyover was supposed to be a tunnel road which was rebuffed by the Archeological Survey of India fearing danger to Humayun's tomb!
So much for town planning and preparation for Games

3. While MCD tries to expedite the projects at hand, it is now eating some of its own medicine as it faces resistenace from the environment department of Delhi Government. The widening of the the road to Karni Singh Shooting range has hit the breaker (after being stuck for 6 months anyway) because widening of the road would require felling 400 trees, which is not permitted.
So a "one- way" solution is being thought about.
Did the MCD involve other stake holders in the goverment when they had first envisaged the locations of the games? The answer seems to be no!

4. In a report to the chief justice K.G.Balakrishnan, town planner and former chairman of Delhi Urban Arts Commission, Charles Correa has advocated that the badminton and the squash stadiums be moved away from Siri Fort Indoor Stadium to elsewhere for the purpose of preserving the the green in the area. MCD is now looking at other options with a Rs.1.5 billion kitty for Squash and Badminton stadiums!
Alternate options had never been prepared. Old Sites were being counted upon. With the development tactic backfiring on issues such as environment it will be interesting to see how MCD generates options for the CWG