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

Delhi: Running out of time on Commonwealth

A sequel to my earlier post : A system in Rot, http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/system-in-rot.html, this blog post takes the lack of seriousness of governance and Bureaucracy to the next level: How is it going to affect the 2010 Commonwealth games in Delhi?

China's Beijing Olympic dazzle left the world glittered in its awe and won it some great acclaim world over. In 2006, Melbourne hosted the Commonwealth Games and rasied the bar ever so much. In 2010, the Commonwealth games move into India and Delhi. Its less than 18 months here on to the games and Delhi looks not even to have started the preparedness to the Commonwealth. A parliamentary report tabled at the Rajya Sabha has slammed Delhi Government's preparedness on the Commonwealth and yet the Delhi sport minister, Manohar Singh Gill has side stepped the concern, likening the preparation for Commonwealth to a great Indian wedding, where everything comes together just on time before the opening ceremony. For the government that was elected on its progress agenda, Shiela Dixit and her men, are in adenial to face realities that they face. Worse, adhocism and procastrination in terms of infrastructure development leading to this event may dent India's image significantly in the world communities but no one seems to be bothered about it really. All that is in the air, is the election and its doesnot seem like there will be any awareness and action on this till about June 2009, which will only leave 15 months to the Opening ceremony.

The Games Village, the facilities around, the roads and transport, the security, the airports,the  water and power supply, nothing seems to be in place for this spectacle. In absence of any serious call to action, the image that India may project in front of the 71 participating nations may not be a very flattering one. According to press reports, the Commonwealth boxing championships have already been pushed back from December 2009 and the vice president of the international swimming federation has already slammed the organisers for the poor facilities.

The ministers answers, the CAG report on delays in project completion, ruefully point to the deliberate lack of seriousness in efforts to develop infrastructure. If this be the case in Delhi, which is the capital of this country, imagine what be it in far off places (India being a geographical and economically diverse country!). Corruption, schedule overruns, rampant mis-use of public funds, lack of foresight in policy decisions and ballooning funds are going to sink the ship, even before it takes to the high seas. A damning statistic over here: out of 519 infrastructure projects scheduled by the central government, 258 are running behind schedule (50%) and the cost overruns are 13.4% (from 344119 crores to 390230 crores). 

It is time to step up the gas, and probably at this time, it is worth inviting private participation of infrastructure companies to speeden things up for a change.