I tend to have an opinion about anything and everything. And just like that I decided that I must have a blog to myself where I can share my views about those everything about everyday life.
If anyone is in India right now and close to a television or a newspaper - The commonwealth may be the most common word that they may have heard or read. Oh! My bad- its ain't the most common word- that pride place is taken by "corruption". The Commonwealth games was supposed to be the opportunity for the country to showcase its development and its entrepreneurial skills. It was a chance for India to show to the world that it can hold a world class event and would have been a precursor to better things to come. But so far all this has been a distant dream.
Some argue that a country of our size where almost half or more of the country is below poverty line- we should have stayed away from the Games and invested elsewhere. Quite a valid point in hindsight. India till date isn't a athletics driven country- the various disciplines hardly have any following. Plus in addition for most disciplines to be adopted by the masses - the infrastructure is absent. Tell me how many badminton courts/tennis courts/running tracks/hockey astro turfs are available for free in the cities or towns? Most developed countries have world class infrastructure at the grass root levels. The money that the country spent on the Games could have been utilized to try and get some facilities built for the young buds. The people of Delhi were shown dreams of infrastructures mirroring cities like Singapore, Toronto etc. But couldn't the Government have built those infrastructures any ways? I must say the Sports Ministry at best is a idle ministry - which other country sends its representatives without even a proper kit for the Olympic opening? The other central party to this all - the IOC with a certain Mr. Kalmadi as its head - well the less said about it the better. The IOC has been a meeting ground of politicians and not sports administrators or ex sports person. For most IOC never is really bothered about the state of various Olympic disciplines in India. When they cant even hold National games on time, what makes us think that we should expect better on a world stage from them?
What the CWG should have got was a top crack project manager for the games. Someone from the private sector with an experience of handling mega projects. For a games of such scale and magnitude, the purchase department could have driven down the acquisition cost for all items. Instead most equipments were acquired at 600-700% markups. Somewhere it seems that there was large scale rigging of the purchase process. Contracts were given at astronomical prices - quality not checked for, time lines were missed but no penalties imposed. The PMO also should have been more active and on top of things but sadly that wasn't the case. PMO was more busy firefighting other issues.
The CWG should be made to do a few things and fast - they should publish details of all tenders and details of companies who won the tender. The PMO should constitute a crack team including some good project managers and some people with financial background and ensure that all tenders are revisited. Any tender which counts abnormal prices(like 4k for 100 rolls of toilet paper) should be canceled at once. All venues should be thoroughly checked for quality and for any deficiencies, the contractor should be hauled up and penalized. The independent financial authority(consisting of auditors, chartered accountants and forensic accountants) should then start looking into the money trail. The report should be tabled to the Prime Minister. The organizing team also needs to build support around the Games - with all the negative publicity going around, the perception of the common man on the streets has to be changed. The games will only be a success if the common person turns out in support. I still believe if left to professionals, the Games can still be salvaged. But it needs some tough decisions from the government who most often than not is found short on that respect. Lets see how the event falls out.
