The clock ticks as delays, controversies plague India’s first Commonwealth Games

India’s Commonwealth Games plagued by delay, anger

NEW DELHI — A countdown clock outside the Commonwealth Games offices in New Delhi shows 192 days left until the Indian capital hosts the 17-sport event. But the city still looks like a messy construction site.

The main stadium is months overdue and remains a tangle of cranes, and residents are furious over new taxes to pay for the Games.

Meanwhile, dozens of construction workers have died and hundreds of thousands are laboring in unsafe conditions in the rush to prepare the city for the Games, a court-appointed investigation said.

India hoped that by hosting athletes from the 71 countries of the Commonwealth, the former British Empire, it would boost its global image and become a contender for the Olympics. Now, with the Oct. 3 start date approaching, many are wondering whether it’s worth it.

“For poor people there are no benefits from all this,” said Ramesh Dubey, a sidewalk vendor angry over a proposed hike in cooking gas taxes. “This whole show is by rich people and will only benefit rich people.”

Suresh Kalmadi, head of India’s organizing committee, has promised that problems will be resolved.

“With the support of the governments of India and Delhi, we are doing everything to produce a great Games,” he told visiting Commonwealth delegates this month.

Numerous hurdles remain.

The main Jawaharlal Nehru stadium — which is to host the opening and closing ceremonies and the main track events — is a giant shell. Dozens of laborers ferry cement and bricks in baskets on their heads. Cranes dot the sprawling complex, and the road around it is a dug-up mound of dirt.

There are similar scenes at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee swimming complex.

Both complexes were supposed to have been finished by December.

“Certainly it’s cutting it very, very fine with Jawaharlal Nehru stadium and the swimming stadium,” said Mike Hooper, the CEO of the Commonwealth Games Federation, who is in New Delhi helping oversee the preparations.

The stadiums are now scheduled to be finished in June.

“If they don’t adhere to these new revised, revised deadlines then we do have real concerns about the operational delivery and the pressure it will put on the organizing committee,” Hooper told The Associated Press.

Many New Delhi roads are lined with mounds of rubble, often forcing several lanes of traffic into a single, chaotic one. New construction projects crop up every few weeks.

An attempt to clean up Connaught Place, a collection of colonial-era buildings at the heart of the city’s business district, has choked shops in the area.

A once-busy book store managed by Puneet Sharma is now mostly deserted, surrounded by scaffolding and rubble that has blocked access.

“They have known about the Games since 2003 and yet we were given no notice about when work would start in our area,” Sharma said. “It’s all very unplanned and haphazard.”

Indian organizers insist the construction and roadwork will be wrapped up by the end of June.

“There have been some delays,” accepts Rahul Bhatnagar, a senior official from India’s Sports Ministry, who is overseeing the preparations, “but the venues will all be done well in time for the test events and the main Games.”

The cash-strapped government is pumping in more money to the nearly $3 billion event. Last week, the national government announced it was lending the organizers an additional $150 million to pay for fixtures and equipment required at the venues.

On Monday, the city government said it would increase taxes on everything from cell phones to tea, mostly to offset the cost of the Games.

As the government scrambled to meet the new deadlines, allegations have cropped of negligence and abuse at the building sites.

A panel appointed by the New Delhi High Court said last week that at least 43 workers were killed because of dangerous work sites and a lack of proper safety gear.

The report said nearly 415,000 contract workers at construction sites related to the event were not paid adequately by private contractors and were forced to work overtime for no extra money.

The government says it will monitor the construction agencies to ensure all labor laws are followed.

Bhatnagar, the government official, said just a little more patience will yield rich dividends for this city of nearly 16 million and leave it with a lasting legacy.

“Right now everything is dug up, but by the end of June a beautiful city will begin emerging,” he said.

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Web site: www.cwgdelhi2010.org/