COMMONWEALTH GAMES 2010 READINESS

WILL NEW DELHI BE READY?

When the Beijing Olympics went successfully, India started gearing up for the next big sporting event, that is the Commonwealth Games to be held in October 2010. But with just 10 months to go there is a question mark over the readiness for the Games. Bureacratic red tape has ensured that deadlines have been missed for the different stages of preparations for the Games. In fact, as luck would have it, the recession also came at a time when funds were required by the local bodies towards the financing of the preparations. The main developers of the Games Village, Emaar MGF, had declared that they had been hit hard by the recession - they were not able to pay for their outsourced contracted work being carried for the Games.

In fact, as written on this site (Recall CEO and IOA vs CGF)the fight between Commonwealth federation Chief, Mike Fennell and the Games Committee chief Suresh Kalmadi came out into the open in September 2009. It took the intervention of the Home Minister and even the Prime Minister of India to settle the dispute by announcing that the preparations for the Games would complete in time. Suresh Kalmadi had gone to the extent of calling for the removal of Mike Hooper which was refused by Mike Fennell.

Meanwhile, the deadlines for completion of preparations for the Commonwealth Village has been postponed to March 2010 from December 2009. The main venues for the Games, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and SP Mukherji swimming complex, will be ready as per plan only by June 2010 which is very close to the staging of the Games in October 2010. Only time will tell whether the preparations will be complete before the beginning of the Commonwealth Games in October 2010.