Scams, shoddy works cloud India's Commonwealth Games (News Feature)

Aug 10, 2010, 6:02 GMT

New Delhi - With just eight weeks to go to the opening ceremony, India's reparations for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi is making daily headlines for all the wrong reasons.

News of financial scams and tardy or shoddy finishing of games venues is hogging newsprint, television talk showtime and discussions in parliament.

The Indian capital is scheduled to host the event, the biggest for India so far, from October 3-14.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games was meant to showcase the country's competence and coming of age but is rapidly turning into an embarrassing example of the corruption and inefficiency that is part of everyday life in the world's largest democracy.

Over 20 agencies are involved in the preparations for the games with a budget that has shot up almost 10-fold from an original estimate of 12 billion rupees (about 260 million dollars) to about 114.94 billion.

The Indian government, or rather the taxpayer would be paying largely for the games, with only 4 billion rupees of private sponsorship collected so far.

Serious allegations of fraud have been dogging the games organizing committee headed by a ruling Congress Party politician Suresh Kalmadi.

Newspapers and television channels have been digging out documents, largely letters and e-mails, to allege that selected firms were being overpaid for equipment and services that range from car hire to treadmills and toilet paper.

An allegation that occupied a great deal of time in parliament was of a 250,000-pound (3989,000-dollar) pay-off to little-known London companies AM Films and AM Car Hire for renting vehicles, video screens, portable toilets, ambulances and barricades for the Queen's Baton Relay in the British capital on October 29, without proper contracts or documents.

Investigations are being conducted and heads have started rolling. The committee's joint director general TS Darbari has been sacked and the treasurer AK Khanna quit after reports said his son's firm had been awarded a contract to lay the tennis surface at a games venue.

'It is generation of personal wealth rather than common wealth,' Arun Jaitley, leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party said in parliament last week.

More worrying than the financial scams, was a preliminary report by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the Indian government's financial corruption watchdog agency, claiming irregularities in 14 games projects. The CVC is investigating award of works at higher prices and to ineligible agencies.

The Times of India newspaper quoted CVC officials as saying construction quality certificates of several projects had turned out to be 'fake or suspect.'

The Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive office Mike Hooper said the games organizing committee had been asked to furnish a report from each of the government agencies responsible for a competition venue stating they had approval of regulatory bodies on fire, health and safety by August 18.

'We are very concerned by the CVC report regarding the quality control of the venues. ... We need to be assured and the Commonwealth countries need to be assured that all these venues conform to all the standards required to hold the Games,' Hooper told reporters in Delhi Sunday.

Newspaper photographs over the past few weeks have shown seepage, hanging wires, broken tiles at completed stadia while piles of rubble are there for all to see outside games venues and across the city where several beautification projects have missed their deadlines.

Congress Party spokesman Manish Tiwari said all charges of fraud would be investigated and the guilty punished. But the focus for the moment should be on holding a successful games, he said, as India's pride was at stake and it was not time for playing politics but to pull together.

'The truth has been lost in a maze of allegations,' Tiwari said in parliament, urging lawmakers not be carried away by media reports.

Meanwhile, the mad scramble continues.

Delhi government's chief secretary Rakesh Mehta said the renovation of Yamuna Sports Complex, where archery and table tennis events are to take place, is unlikely to be completed by a reset August 31 deadline along with peripheral works at the Talkatora indoor boxing stadium and the Karni Singh shooting range.

Answering questions on the incomplete stadia in parliament, federal Sports Minister MS Gill told opposition lawmakers and some from his own Congress Party, 'Have faith in India. India will get there.'