By RAVI NESSMAN
NEW DELHI —
The sporting event which India hoped would herald its emergence as a regional power and serve as a springboard to an Olympic bid has instead turned into a chaotic mess.
Less than seven weeks before New Delhi is to host to the Commonwealth Games, venues are still under construction, top officials have been forced out in scandal, costs have soared and many are questioning the wisdom of spending so much money on an event in a nation riddled with social ills.
To make matters worse, many top athletes, including Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, pulled out and even Queen Elizabeth II has said she won’t come to the Games, which brings together the 71 countries of the Commonwealth, or former British Empire.
After China showcased its economic clout during an impressive Beijing Olympics, India’s Commonwealth Games organizers were under pressure to deliver a comparable spectacle to promote “India Rising.”
Instead, the bungling of the preparations for this second-tier sports event has highlighted the government corruption and malaise that continues to plague the nation, said Harsh V. Pant, a political analyst.
“When it comes to implementation, I don’t think India has moved an inch from where we used to be,” he said.
Hoping to stem the cascade of problems, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stepped in last weekend, ordering a corruption probe and appointing a group of Cabinet ministers to oversee the final preparations and try to salvage the event.
The move came as criticism of the Games, to be held in New Delhi from Oct. 3-14, reached fever pitch, with everything from traffic jams to mosquito breeding blamed on preparations.
The Times of India newspaper showed Shera, the Games’ jaunty, cartoon tiger mascot, on a respirator, and a former sports minister publicly hoped the Games would collapse in disarray so India would not be tempted to bid for future events.
Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, called the broadsides “unpatriotic.”
“I plead with people to look at the better side of the Games – the rest will fall into place,” she told The Sunday Express newspaper.
But the problems are hard to ignore.
Venues that were supposed to be completed last year to allow for test events, are still in what officials promise is the final phase of construction.
Workers are still building the corrugated tin roof at the new weightlifting arena, which partially collapsed after springing a leak during recent monsoon rains.
The Shivaji stadium in central Delhi, which is to be used as a practice field for hockey teams, has been stripped down, its facade left with gaping holes as hundreds of workers navigated large piles of red bricks, gray concrete blocks and rusting reinforcing rods.
A 4-kilometer-long 4 (2.5-mile-long) road-bridge connecting the athletes village to the main stadium has gaps in it.
“We have to accept where we are and look forward,” said Mike Hooper, the CEO of the Commonwealth Games Federation, who is in New Delhi helping oversee the preparations. “Everyone’s got a lot of work to do, and that’s what they’ve got to focus on.”
Much of central Delhi remains torn up by projects that had been intended to beautify the city for the 100,000 foreign tourists the Games committee had anticipated. Many of the projects are so far behind schedule they are being covered up, to be worked on again after the event.
And there are doubts the tourists are even coming.
Hotels that expected to be sold out have received only anemic bookings for the Games and regular tourists seem to be deferring travel during what would usually be high season to avoid the spectacle, said Rajindera Kumar, president of Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India.
“The response is so weak,” he said. “I’m really fearing for the industry.”
The cost of hosting the Games – which the government initially pegged at less than $100 million in 2003 – has skyrocketed, with estimates ranging from $3 billion to more than $10 billion.
A recent report by a government watchdog said contractors were charging unreasonable rates, producing shoddy work and fabricating tests to show the quality of their construction was up to standards.
Meanwhile, ticket sales have been delayed, sponsorships have not met expectations and over the weekend the official merchandiser pulled out, saying delays in launching his products were costing him unbearable losses. On Thursday, two power companies announced they were canceling their multimillion dollar sponsorship deals with the event.
Three top officials were fired this month over alleged financial irregularities with the London launching of the Queen’s Baton Relay – a monthslong odyssey akin to the Olympic torch relay. That came a week after the organizing committee’s treasurer resigned amid accusations his son’s firm was given a contract to help build the tennis courts.
As part of a drive to clean up the city ahead of the event, the government demolished thousands of slum homes and arrested homeless people and beggars, according to a coalition of human rights groups.
At the venue sites, construction workers earned just half the minimum wage, were not given helmets, gloves or other safety gear and worked in conditions so dangerous that 42 of them were killed in accidents, the group said.
“Even if the games are a success, even if we are miraculously able to pull out a successful games, the negative social legacy is going to be with us for years to come,” said Miloon Kothari, director of the Housing and Land Rights Network, one of the groups in the coalition.
Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress Party, said Thursday that all the allegations would be investigated after the closing ceremony. In the meantime, she called on Indians to unite behind the Games, the biggest sporting event to be held here since the 1982 Asian Games.
“The prestige of the nation is involved,” she said.
But the event has turned into an embarrassment for a country that should be focusing instead on fixing its medical and education system and dealing with the hundreds of millions mired in poverty, said Rajan Singh, 29, a software engineer.
“With a developing country like India, we need to invest in other infrastructure,” he said. “Once that is complete, we can go for Games like this.”
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