New Delhi: With just 67 days to go for the Commonwealth Games, anxiety levels soared on Tuesday -- the day when the showpiece Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was inaugurated in the backdrop of a worrying accident in which a young swimmer tripped on a loose grill and hurt herself at a test event at the Talkatora stadium, now called S P Mukherjee stadium, reports Times of India.
The test event, National Federation Cup, was held to demonstrate that the swimming complex was games-ready. Instead, it looked far from ready. Loose tiles, loose grills, protruding iron rods, unfinished staircases and tonnes of rubbish outside told a sad story of unpreparedness, and worse, a slapdash attitude towards an event that's billed to raise India's international prestige, but could easily end up as an embarrassment.
Worried experts lamented the lack of seriousness about the ongoing work with many of them saying that things could still be salvaged if the finishing work is taken up on a war-footing. They were looking for political intervention from the highest level. "We just can't allow the Games to fail," said one of them. As if the slippages in the Games stadia weren't bad enough, the ongoing civil Games-related works have also come under critical scrutiny. The central vigilance commissioner Pratyush Sinha was quoted by an agency as saying that the CVC was examining all construction work following complaints of large-scale corruption.
"Apart from expeditiously attending to complaints relating to the Games, the CVC, through its chief technical examiner's wing, is keeping a close watch on all the contracts and works undertaken for the Games," Sinha was quoted as saying. Coming back to the accident at the swimming complex, a young swimmer from West Bengal narrowly escaped serious injury after tripping over a loose plastic grill at the side of the diving pool on the opening day of a test event for the Commonwealth Games at the swimming complex.
The swimmer was caught unawares by the loose grill, meant for draining water at the poolside, as she stepped out of the pool after practice and fell near one of the diving boards. Sheepish officials immediately rushed in to refit the grills. Officials of Sports Authority of India, sought to dismiss the incident as "non-serious". "Such things can happen in any pool in the world. Grills are usually loosely-fitted. She put her foot in such a manner that it slipped. Anyway, we will check these grills again," said a senior SAI official.
The official's casual attitude towards the accident is hardly likely to increase the confidence level among athletes world-wide who have already been fed by the global media on India's poor organizing abilities in sports. It's not even a fortnight since the sports ministry threw open the state-of-the-art swimming complex for the Games but the big claims of the pool being ready and up-to-date in time seem hollow. Meanwhile, a Swimming Federation of India (SFI) official agreed that the complex was far from ready. "The pool is ready but the finishing work is still on. All this is likely to take a long time," the official said speaking on condition of anonymity.
Due to the lack of facilities a diving event had to be rescheduled to the last day. "The high board diving event might be even called off if the requirements are not met," the official added. Some swimmers complained that the changing rooms are still under construction as all swimmers were made to use the changing room meant for divers.
The scoreboard was also not put up as the touch pad and lines were not in place. To this the SFI official replied, "The Omega (scoreboard) people are here and everything is ready from our side." When asked for an opinion on the pool, another swimmer drew attention to sharp-edged material lying near the warm-up pool. This, he said, could hurt the swimmers. Sarah, a South African national, also the physiotherapist with the Indian swimming team said that the pool was good but a "lot of work needs to be done outside the pool area."
Meanwhile, the swanky 60,000-capacity JNS, venue for opening and closing ceremonies, and athletics events, was inaugurated by the sports minister M S Gill in the presence of Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit and CWG organising committee (OC) president Suresh Kalmadi on Tuesday afternoon.
