London is ready to host mini Olympics-style games right now, two years away from the Olympics. Delhi, with less than two months to go for the opening of the Commonwealth Games, is in a mess, literally and figuratively. To the formidable technical and logistical challenges of getting the facilities ready in time has been added the task of cleaning up the financial act, with scams and scandals tumbling out every other day. As if the unedifying sight of the leaking stadia roofs was not enough, the charges of corruption and ‘doctored' e-mails against the Organising Committee (OC) officials have started flying thick and fast. The public authorities have not been spared either for some shoddy work in building stadia and beautifying the city. The so-called ‘world-class' facilities are still incomplete and have been found to be sub-standard or lacking in several respects. At least one of them, the swimming pool, has come in for adverse comments from the international federation's delegate. Low quality material and poor workmanship stick out at many a venue.
Extravagance had been the striking feature of Delhi's bid to host the Games. At the 2003 bid in Kingston, from offering free air passage, accommodation, and local transport to every member of a delegation to promising $100,000 to each participating country for training their athletes, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was set on a splurging spree. The overall costs shot up from an original estimate of Rs.655 crore to the present Rs.11,490 crore, with the Delhi government expected to spend another Rs.17,000 crore. The promise of the OC to reimburse the government the organisational expenditure that could cross Rs.2,400 crore sounds rather hollow. The projected revenue is nowhere in sight, though IOA President and Chairman of the Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi is sticking to his optimistic calculations. Even allowing for some cutting of procedural corners in the hurry to complete the facilities, the outlandish figures being quoted as hiring charges for air conditioners, treadmills, and chairs can only heighten the revulsion among the tax-paying public. Attempts at damage control through the new enquiry committee notwithstanding, with every passing day Mr. Kalmadi's position is becoming more and more untenable. With the deadlines long past, the government needs to show a greater resoluteness in the task of completing the facilities in the very short time left, and in starting enquiries to bring to book the perpetrators of the multiple scams, evidence of which is pouring out. The present Organising Committee has shown itself to be unequal to both these tasks
