Common Wealth Games or Games with Common Man's Wealth?

When the capital of our country has been bestowed with the opportunity of organizing a global event of the stature of Common Wealth Games whose magnitude can be easily ascertained by the sheer fact that athletes from over 72 nations will be taking part in 266 events across 17 disciplines over an action packed period of 12 days, ideally this mega event should create an atmosphere no lesser than what the FIFA World Cup did for the rainbow nation of South Africa but ironically things are no way near those high decibel levels. Thanks to the horrible state of preparations and highly corrupt governance of finances involved in the organizing of this event, there are no Vuvuzelas roaring in India to celebrate this global event. Infact not many of us are even thinking about the games at all, rather we are more bogged down by the controversies surrounding the organizing of the Games.But why such a sordid state? Why we are not talking about the Games and the prospective atheletes who can bring medals and in turn some glory to our nation?

Reasons are many and they are all depressing. Despite the fact that the games were allotted to India in the year 2003, giving our authorities a time frame of over 7 years to get prepared for the big stage, not much happened on the ground till 2006. Though the international guidelines stipulated that all CWG projects should be complete by May 2009, with last year being kept aside for trial runs, our organizing committee is no where near the international standards rather they have are busy in revising the deadlines or the project completion date all the time. And with no more than 50 days left for the opening ceremony, the abysmal state of preparedness is shocking. Most sporting venues including the Jawaharlal Nehru track & field stadium and swimming complex won't be complete before the Aug 10 extended deadline. At the table tennis facility the false ceiling has collapsed, at the weightlifting arena the vinyl flooring is already peeling, there are also reports of seepage at the boxing stadium, the swimming pool for the main event got flooded last week, and not even one third of the total flats for accommodating the international contingents are complete. If these facts on the state of infrastructure ill preparedness seem to be outrageous than the ones regarding financial irregularities are even more shocking and disgraceful.

A mammoth Rs 30,000 crore has already been spent on various infrastructure and development projects related to the CWG, though its a different matter that Rs 30,000 crores to achieve such a dismal state of infrastructure is an utter mockery of the tax payer's money. But if ordinary chairs worth Rs 500/- are being 'hired' for Rs 8500/-, 100 liter refrigerators which cost around Rs 4000/- and can store no more than 5 bottles of water are being hired for Rs 42,000 a piece, a single roll of toilet tissues whose worth is not more than Rs 100/- are being brazenly projected to be bought at Rs 4500/-, treadmills are being hired for over Rs 9.75 lakhs which is several times higher than the buying cost of the most efficient and suave treadmill available globally and when a gigantic sum of Rs 4500 crores has been spent on renovating various stadiums whose present condition is a fact of public knowledge now, heads are bound to turn and common man is sure to feel dejected, sad and furious. And when common sense defying contracts are being awarded to parties who have no idea about managing things, scenes are bound to be this dramatic and tragic. So giving these huge financial irregularities the names of scam and corruption is an understatement because in true sense it's nothing short of a large scale public robbery.

But what is staggering is the fact that why are people of the stature of Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi not speaking at all on this royal mess. They never let a chance go by when it came to speaking volumes on the corruption charges against Mayawati and Madhu Koda or leave that apart they sacked their own minister Mr. Shashi Tharoor who was not even proved guilty but had to step down for mere allegations from the opposition. So when the government backed organizing committee has well and truly eaten up a huge amount of public money by the name of common wealth games why are these bigwigs so dumb and numb. Is it the age old politics of remaining silent and letting the storm pass by or is it a clear cut case of everybody having there own share from this huge pie? Whatever be it by doing so they are doing no good to the reputation of our nation because when we are hosting an event of this global stature we are not only supposed to treat our guests with utmost care and respect but we should also be concerned about the pride involved in the entire process. By practice every new event, activity or version is much better than its previous edition, be it Olympics, be it Soccer World cup or be it Common Wealth Games and the same happened with the recent FIFA world cup in South Africa too which was a masterpiece event and ditto with the last edition of Olympics in Beijing. Infact the standards of excellence and quality in Beijing were so high that it will be a herculean task for the next organizers to match their predecessors. Certainly nobody is expecting us to set new standards of quality and excellence through the Common Wealth Games but we should be at least respectable in all the setups and arrangements. Though at this point that seems to be a distant reality because by the look of it the organizers seem to be more keen in robbing theCommon Man's Wealth rather than focusing on the success of Common Wealth Games.

So in this murky scenario of financial irregularities, collapsing ceilings and flooded stadiums what can a proud but dejected Indian do? The only possible thing he can probably think of doing is to earnestly pray that this edition of Common Wealth Games ends out to be free of mishaps and accidents.

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