Poor construction of CWG stadiums worries sports federations

Published>Mon, Aug 02 10 04:37 PM

New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS) Vijay Kumar Malhotra, president of the General Association of National Sports Federations (GANSF) Monday expressed serious concern over the reported poor construction of stadiums for the Commonwealth Games being held here Oct 3-14.

Malhotra, a senior vice-president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), said during the general assembly of GANSF that he was shocked to see that despite spending huge amount of money, most of the stadiums were not ready to host the Games.

'There is a general sense of antipathy, cynicism, concern, worry about the Games. The common man on the street is worried not only about the massive corruption but also about the image of the country,' said Malhotra, who is also the leader of opposition in the Delhi legislative assembly.

Malhotra, who is also the president of the Archery Association of India (AAI), said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has confirmed the worst fears of the sports federations.

'The CVC has finally confirmed our worst fears which we had been expressing for last three years that there had been inordinate delay, corruption and compromise with quality (in preparation of CWG infrastructure). CVC has clearly pointed out large scale corruption, forging of records of testing, jacking up of prices of imported material, tampering of tender documents and involvement of bogus agencies in the construction work,' he said.

Malhotra demanded that Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and her cabinet colleagues and central ministers involved in the preparations for the Games should be black-listed for their criminal negligence.

'Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Group of Ministers keep on making unnecessary statements that these games would be best ever. If everything is under control and infrastructure would be ready in time, then why is there total panic in the Delhi and central governments,' he said.

'I had urged them to start working on the projects at least 30 times in the last four years in Lok Sabha, Delhi Vidhan Sabha and outside. I had cautioned them that delay appears to be deliberate as the more the delay, the more the corruption and more the cost and more compromise with quality,' he said.

Source: Web Search