New Delhi: The preparations for the Commonwealth Games has turned out to be a story of missed deadlines.
With just four days left for expiry of the deadline to remove construction waste across the city, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today once again extended it to September 10, realising the ground situation.
"The deadline had to be extended due to the incessant rains as the concerned agencies could not complete their work. We have asked the agencies to remove the debris and if they don't do that then we will remove them ourselves," Dikshit said on the sidelines of a function here.
Dikshit said that all the work related to the Games will be completed before October 3.
She also blamed incessant rains in the city for the failure to complete the Games works on time. "Probably the rain god is unhappy with us," she said.
This is the third deadline the Chief Minister has set to rid the city of the debris ahead of the mega sporting event to be held from October 3 to 14.
Last month, Dikshit had set August 10 as deadline to remove the debris but as all concerned agencies failed to adhere to the timeframe, it was extended to August 31.
The new deadline has been set after various agencies involved in construction activities conveyed to Dikshit that they will not be able to complete their works within next four days and so it will not also be possible to remove the debris completely.
Dikshit said a total of 145,000 metric tonnes of debris were removed from various areas of the city already.
The Chief Minister had earlier set August 31 as "final deadline" for completing all the projects linked to the event but now top officials admit that they will not be able to finish the works by the timeframe due to heavy rains in the last few days.
The city government had undertaken projects worth over Rs 15,000 crore to improve infrastructure in the capital for the Games. The pressure on it to complete the works has been growing with each passing day with most of the projects already missing several deadlines. PTI
