IS THERE a case for the Government to step in to clear the ugly mess that India’s Commonwealth Games aspirations have turned into? Have we bitten off more than we can chew? The growing reality that a serious execution risk is attached to the Games is now dawning upon us. As one drives around the city of Delhi, one does so with great trepidation for the condition of the roads is appalling. Unseasonal rains have created moon craters in several sections of the Ring Roads, from a distance one sees massive construction sites that appear disjointed, all in all it does not inspire too much confidence in the citizenry.
For effective 3 October this year, it will be D minus 365 and counting. My colleague Sunil Narula has done an on the spot analysis of the status of various key projects and things don’t look too bright. Fissures within the organising committee, pressure from the Commonwealth Games Federation, too many committees and a raft of civic agencies are not leading to proper focused coordination creating needless delays and controversies. We are now talking of salvaging a $ 13.5 billion project if one were to include all the other related development cost to upgrade the metro’s creaking infrastructure. If CGF president Mike Fennell is to meet the PM next month, then it is incumbent on Dr Manmohan Singh to save the Games. The modus operandi can be worked out, but these Games need to be saved. In November 2003, India was awarded the CWG, ahead of Canada’s candidate city Hamilton. It is now six years since that day.
In many ways it is a throwback to the situation that prevailed on the ground in Delhi 28 years ago in the run up to the Delhi Asian Games. It took India 30 odd years to get the Asian Games in 1982. This time it is the staging of the prestigious Commonwealth Games that are at stake. We have not done ourselves too much credit by botching up the preparations. And now with a year to go, we need a strong government action to expedite the progress. Mrs Indira Gandhi was in power in 1981 at the Centre. Realising that Delhi was not making any progress with the Asian Games infrastructure, she entrusted the job to monitor all stadia and other facilities roll out and completion to her son Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi was a wetnose in politics, but he was still a Congress general secretary and MP from Amethi. Mrs Gandhi recovering from the shock of the untimely death of her younger son Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash needed someone trustworthy for this important assignation.
The key stadia – Jawahar Lal Nehru, Talkatora, Indira Gandhi Indoor – and several hotel projects were all delayed and there was a sense of panic amongst the organisers whether things will be delivered on time.
In many ways, it was so much similar to the situation prevailing this time round, the only difference being that the CWG are much bigger with many more participants and support staff congregating in the city. Many more visitors are also expected, After all, athletes like Usain Bolt are expected to be on show. Buta Singh, then a minister of state for supply and rehabilitation, was entrusted with the responsibility of heading the special organising committee and he was assisted in this task by retired bureaucrat KT Satarawala who was named coordinator for the projects. But Rajiv Gandhi was quick to bring in other politicians and administrators to roll out the Games in a spiffy manner. These were men who understood the complexities of the task and more importantly the city. So, HKL Bhagat, Lt Governor Jagmohan, HKL Kapoor and Raja Bhalindra Singh were coopted into the new A team.
The objective was to get the projects moving with a result oriented focus. Every evening a compliance report was submitted to Rajiv Gandhi by the A Team. Some of the old timers remember that Rajiv Gandhi, a former pilot with Indian Airlines, was extremely result oriented, something that was like a second skin to him. He used to visit the stadia which were lagging behind and give out orders there and then which needed to be executed. It was the same then as well.
The JLN stadium to be used for the opening and closing ceremonies was the centrepiece of the event. The CPWD was in charge of it. The Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Rajghat sports complex was being executed by DDA while the swimming pool at Talkatora was in the hands of NDMC.
Mulitplicity of civic agencies was a phenomenon then as well. But that is the nature of the beast for Delhi remains a Union Territory with multiple masters. The key is coordination. Control and management of the Games is the single biggest imponderable for any multi discipline event in India. Everyone wants a piece of the action and everyone wants to be a control freak.
For the 1982 Asian Games, what was crucial was that the Government decided to keep the Indian Olympic Association out of the organisational loop. Though Raja Bhalindra Singh, who headed the IOA those days, was consulted on everything, but he did not run the show per se. Buta Singh did. This time Suresh Kalmadi is calling the shots.
The IOA president is also chairman of the CWGOC. Maybe this is where the problem lies. In 2001, when India was to host the Afro Asian Games in Delhi, a similar problem arose between then minister of sports Uma Bharati and the IOA president Suresh Kalmadi. Kalmadi had got himself installed as the working chairman of the organising committee then as well and in a bizarre meeting of the empowered committee executing the project, Uma Bharati and Kalmadi virtually had a slanging match which finally resulted in Bharati asking Kalmadi to get out of the room. At the core of the problem was control, Bharati not wanting to relinquish it to Kalmadi who wanted the IOA to run the event.
The time has come for the Government to step in unequivocally. A special organising committee needs to be set up. Maybe someone like E Sreedharan should head it. Or if we want to reprise what transpired in 1981, let us bring in Congress general secretay Rahul Gandhi and allow him to take charge. The event is too prestigious to botch up. If India wants to reinvent itself from being a tired old third world nation to a vibrant emerging economy which wants its place at the global head table, then time is running out. Give someone like Sreedharan or Rahul Gandhi the task of setting things right. It is imperative that the Government moves in to save the Commonwealth Games from turning into a big organisational disaster. Whether Prime minister Manmohan Singh constitutes an A Team to deliver the event or Sonia Gandhi as head of the Congress party does so is immaterial. What is vital to the nation’s prestige is that a new band of brothers needs to be constituted as soon as possible to hand over a smooth Games by next February.
Ideally, someone like Rahul Gandhi should rope in his team of young MPs and drive the agenda of closure of limping stadia work. Parallely, the Delhi Government should also be made to report to this team and insist on closure of all Games related infrastructure as quickly as possible. We still have a good 377 days to go for the main event. The IOA and present dispensation simply is not upto the task. Only 30-odd nations participated in the Asian Games, this time round, there are 71 countries and as many as 8000 athletes and support staff.
With the CWG General Assembly slated to take place in the capital next month, the pressure game will begin as the organisers will start facing the heat on the ‘tardy progress’. The General Assembly may well accentuate our plight for any caustic comment from the member countries will only send things into a tailspin. Any adverse comment will only throw into a stark relief what Fennell has stated – failure from the operational perspective from hereon – will be most galling.
