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

Failing Revenue Generation Claims

Projected financial bottomlines of the games have already been revised thrice even before the revenues are yet to trickle in. The financial management skills of the organizing committee have come under the scanner of CAG.

As per the bid documents of December 2003, the projected revenue was estimated to be Rs.840 crore and the operating expenditure was projected at Rs.635 crore resulting in savings of Rs.205 crore. In August 2007, the organizing committee increased its income by Rs.60 crore while it hiked its expenditure by Rs.132 crore, thus reducing savings to Rs.133 crores.

A Year later, surprisingly, the committee again revised its projected accounts where estimated surplus cash to zero – no profit, no loss with the total revenue reaching Rs.1780 crore and total expenditure also showing Rs.1780 crore. Suresh Kalmadi, President of the Indian Olympic Association has failed to convince auditors on the avenues of revenue generation.CAG now has stressed on the need for greater and more effective monitoring of the actual use of funds given the multiplicity of agencies involved in executing the project.

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

Government flouted the 7 year international Norms

There was hardly any method in the way the Games were approached by the planners, says CAG. The organizers were supposed to follow the seven-year project cycle as practiced internationally — two years for planning and approvals, four years for execution, construction and development, and the last year for test events and trial runs.After the event was awarded to New Delhi in 2003, the government instead adopted a four-phase approach. In the first phase, the entire plan for the Games was to be laid out. Two years were allocated for this purpose (January 2004 to May 2006). The second phase was for creation of infrastructure, between May 2006 and May 2008. The delivery of the completed projects was to be made between May 2008 to December 2010.CAG observed that there was no evidence of the four phase approach being translated into action from 2004 to 2006 (phase one), nor during a major part of phase two. In fact, in its response to CAG observations, the organizing committee said that till the appointment of technical and HR consultants in 2006, it had little or no experience in organizing an event of this magnitude.

Lack of governance and mismanagement is not new to India and Indians. As a nation, if India cuts a sorry face in CWG in October 2010, it will dampen the global perception of India and Indians. But, it will also probably awaken the system and authorities and bring in greater accountability and responsibility into the system. If the CWG fiasco manages to achieve a shake-up of that order, even that will be a positive outcome as far as India is concerned.

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!

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

China demonstrated its technological and organizational prowess by the stunning spectacle that Beijing Olympics’2008. It was the testimony of China coming to age, a final seal of global approval to China. India has a similar opportunity staging the Common wealth Games in 2010, 12 months now on. However, from the looks of it, the Indian effort will probably be borne out in ignominy, embarrassment and chagrin on the world stage. CAG reported large scale under-preparedness and financial mismanagement in the CWG projects.

Earlier coverages in this blog:

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/delhis-commonwealth-tamasha.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/delhi-running-out-of-time-on.html

Key Games projects badly delayed: CAG
Projects including the main stadium design, games venues, infrastructure for conducting the sports and major city upgrade plans are running so much behind schedule that there’s a real threat of India’s showpiece games turning into a non event. In at least 13 of the 19 sporting venues, the work shortfall is between 25% to 50%. 9 out of 16 major ongoing city infrastructure projects are at high risk of failing deadline with work shortfall of 55% to 97%. All 16 running late infrastructure projects are anyways running super late.This means all these projects would either miss the deadlines or compromise on quality in haste to finish on time.

6 projects have been shelved completely given the helplessness in terms of time schedules and hopelessness in the situation delinking them from the games. CAG says the first 3 projecst were critical to the Games and would impact traffic management during the event.

1. Shastri Park tunnel corridor connecting east Delhi to north and northeast

2 Elevated east-west corridor from east Delhi to CP

3 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg flyover linking IG stadium

4 Masoodpur corridor upgrade & Mahipalpur tunnel

5 SP Mukherjee Marg corridor for easing Old Delhi railway station traffic

6 Signal-free right turn at JB Tito Marg-Siri Fort Road

Among the infrastructure projects shelved due to horrible delays, CAG says the east-west corridor, BSZ Marg flyover and the Shastri Park tunnel were critical for the Games on account of their location and that the decision to delink them would have adverse traffic management implications.

Metro constructions in Delhi have already shown cracks (literally and figuratively under the haste of meeting CWG deadlines).