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Originally posted by ashedfc

What else embarrassment is required: for patriotism to get diminished.
Here is another news (bed collapsing for an athlete).
http://cwg.ndtv.com/commonwealth/article/id/spoen20100154413/type/latest/Akhils-bed-Games-Village-collapses-54799.html

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Snake found in CWG Village
http://www.torontosun.com/sports/othersports/2010/09/26/15481926.html


African nation Botswana, on Sunday complained of lack of cleanliness in the residential complexes of the Commonwealth Games village
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Rooms-are-still-unliveable-Botswana-Chef-de-Mission/Article1-604832.aspx


Meanwhile Australia is worried China is quietly helping Srilanka win bid for 2018 CWG!
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/china-threat-to-gold-coast-games-20100927-15soj.html?from=brisbanetimes_sb

See this article


IN MELBOURNE games cost $1.1 bn, in Delhi (where labour etc is cheaper) it cost $6.6bn ... and still we see “filthy” conditions and shoddy workmanship

How many billions stolen by Government? Will CBI investigate this or because its CONGRESS - they will not???

Will Rahul and Sonia speak ?????







A popular joke doing the rounds in Delhi on Friday had one of India’s leading Commonwealth Games officials trying to hang himself in shame but, when he kicked the stool away, the ceiling collapsed.

Delhi was ready for a laugh on Friday after nearly a week of international embarrassment. Responding to complaints of “filthy” conditions and shoddy workmanship, hundreds of workers swarmed the venues for the 19th Commonwealth Games, working frantically to put things right for the Oct. 3 start.

And their efforts seemed to turn the tide; Australia gave the Games the “thumbs up” on Friday, New Zealand and Northern Ireland confirmed its attendance, and British athletes started arriving at the airport. Even the rain stopped, ending months of monsoon.

But the state of Indian infrastructure remains no joke.

Instead of showcasing one of the world’s largest and most technologically adept states, the Delhi Commonwealth Games have exposed the gaps in India’s emerging powerhouse story.

India is a nuclear-armed state that spends 6 per cent of gross domestic product on infrastructure, but all developers here can expect to confront is an excessively long and complicated obstacle course.

Time and cost overruns are endemic, said Shubhra Puri, publisher at industry magazine Infrastructure India.

“It’s supposed to cost X and it ends up costing 4X or 5X or even 6X,” she said. “There’s the lack of quality contractors. One contractor is not able to deliver, so you bring in someone else. If you can find them. We don’t have quality manpower. And project management is weak. And often the contractor spends half the project period on land acquisition.”

But the real problem is a lack of leadership, she said. The Konkan Railway and Delhi Metro were major infrastructure projects delivered on time and within budget, but only because a competent leader, government engineer Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, took charge.

The Commonwealth Games have been led by a fractious team of bureaucrats, with no one in direct control. “If there had been a hard taskmaster, a chief executive with the right credentials who knows how to deliver things like this, a highly responsible person, this would get done,” Ms. Puri said.

On Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called a cabinet meeting, cracked a few heads together, and ordered everyone involved to “stop passing the buck.”

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit was down at the athletes village leading the cleaning crews, and Commonwealth Games organizers responded positively, with Games chief executive Mike Hooper describing a “sea change.”

Even so, Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates said it was a mistake to award India the event, and urged the organization to keep a closer eye on preparations in the future.

“The problem is the Commonwealth Games Federation is underresourced. It doesn't have the ability to monitor the progress of cities the way the Olympic Committee does,” he said.

Gajendra Haldea, principal adviser on infrastructure to the influential Planning Commission, said India has difficulty with major infrastructure projects only when it follows the conventional contracting approach, suggesting the Games would have benefited from private-sector involvement.

“Where the government has the contractors and they do the work, then we have seen there are usually time and cost overruns,” he said. “But when we use private partnerships, we have a much greater likelihood of getting things completed on time.”

India will increase infrastructure spending to $1-trillion (U.S.) in the five-year plan starting in 2012, but half of that will come from the private sector.

“If you look at projects in Delhi over the last two or three years, the biggest project was the Delhi airport, and Terminal 3 was completed in time and to international standards. So it’s not as if India lacks the capacity to build these projects,” Mr. Haldea said.

Estimates vary but Business Today, an Indian magazine, puts the cost of the Games at $6.6-billion. That is more than 10 times the initial estimate, and six times more than the $1.1 billion spent by Melbourne in 2006, then the most expensive Commonwealth Games on record.

More than one third of that $6.6-billion went to the new international airport terminal and runway, while another $600-million was spent on the new airport Metro line, now racing against its own completion deadline.

What happened to the rest of the cash is something of a mystery. Ms. Puri said many corporate sponsors of the Delhi Games are refusing to complete commitments after Games organizers failed to account for initial contributions.