Delhi Commonwealth Games: A super fiasco in making (Part II)

The sorry state of infra-structure under-preparedness for CWG Delhi 2010

Games Campuses off the schedule

The games campuses that face “high risk” of non completion include Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Aquatic Complex for the swimming event which according to the plan should have been 93% complete by June 2009. Only 40% of the work has been finished so far. Interestingly, even completion targets for the SPM aquatic complex have been reset on documents from 93% to 40% to make the dismal progress so far look good.

Training venue for athletics, swimming, weightlifting and wrestling at the games village is also lagging behind with over 40% of the work yet to be completed. Other key projects lagging behind include the Shivaji Stadium for Hockey, The Ludlow Castle hall for wrestling, The Jamia Milia Islamia university which is the venue for rugby and table tennis and Talkatora Stadium, the boxing venue. All these venues have a work shortfall up to to 50%.

The lack of concern on part of the government and organizers in meeting deadlines reflect in the way planning has been done. While the organizing committee submitted its budget for the Games in November 2005, this was approved by the Centre only in April 2007 a full one-and-a-half year later.The organization plan was finalized in August 2007, project and risk management experts appointed in March 2008 and the Games masterplan finalized in November 2008 for seeking the approval of the Commonwealth Games Federation.As per the international guidelines, all CWG projects were to be completed by May 2009 and the last year should have been kept for trial runs. Au Contraire, Delhi has started work on most of these projects around the same time leaving doubts on completion times and leaving no time absolutely for trial runs!

The all too familiar finger pointing is on as CPWD, the project executing agency, has blamed the organizing committee and its consultants for delaying the projects by constantly revising and re-revising designs for every venue. This is far from the earnest search for real answers and efforts to get things right!