It has been quite a long journey for the State but, with just 26 days remaining for the curtain to go up on the 35th National Games, Principal Coordinator and Chief Commissioner of the Games Jacob Punnoose has said the State is now ready to host the prestigious event.
“We are ready,” Mr. Punnoose told The Hindu , when contacted for clarifications on a schedule of completion of various infrastructure work for the event, set to begin on January 31, released by him on Sunday.
“All construction work related to the games will be completed by January 15. A majority of them, 20 of the 29 to be exact, have already been completed and now the task is to achieve complete readiness,” he said.
Kerala had approached the Indian Olympic Association initially with no blueprint to host the multi-discipline event and had started on its preparations only after the event was finally awarded to it in the first week of October 2008.
The National Games Secretariat (NGS), the special purpose vehicle created by the State government to oversee the preparations for the games, had to struggle through the initial years, fighting apathy of several agencies, both State-owned and autonomous, to secure land for the various stadiums and other infrastructure.
As a result, it had to race against time in the past three years to get all the 29 venues across seven districts completed in time for the largest sporting event of the country.
Referring to reports that the venues would hardly be completed within the deadline, the former State Police Chief said, “we are very much on track here and the venues will be ready. All the equipment for the events have arrived and experts would now work within the next fortnight or so to put them in place.”
“All the works will be completed well within Rs.430 crore, budgeted in 2011, despite there having been a 40 per cent inflation in between,” he said.
