Fund Strapped Government is thinking over single pass for stadiums, DTC and Metro

Who will pay for the bus and Metro tickets of thousands of spectators arriving for the Commonwealth Games events? The question has both the cash-strapped Delhi government and the Games organizing committee in a fix.

The question arose after the traffic police sought a system of common ticketing — that is, a stadium ticket can double as a Metro or DTC pass. The idea, according to officials, is meant to ensure there are fewer cars on the roads.

The traffic police are anticipating a heavy rush during the Games fortnight as one lane will be dedicated for athletes to travel to the venues.

“Every stadium has a Metro station in the vicinity,” Joint Commissioner (Traffic) S N Shrivastava said. “The Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, for example, has two Metro stations (near it). If spectators are allowed to use the same ticket for entry to the Games venues as well to travel in the Metro, they are more likely to dump their cars.”

The fund-starved government, though, is shying away from the extra expenditure. According to estimates, the government will have to shell out Rs 20 crore for DTC and Metro passes if the plan is implemented. A DTC pass for a day costs Rs 40; Delhi Metro charges Rs 50 for a day-long pass.

“DTC has offered to give us a 20 per cent discount, while the Metro has rejected the proposal for a fare waiver. We will soon work out a solution,” Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta said.

Emaar MGF To Pay Penalty If Games Project Delayed

Real estate developer Emaar MGF Land Ltd, preparing for an initial public offering, will have to pay the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) a penalty if there is a delay in the completion of the Commonwealth Games Village project.

The developer will be liable to pay Rs15 lakh a day for the first 15 days of delay and Rs20 lakh a day after that, the company has said in the draft red herring prospectus it filed with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India on Tuesday.

Emaar MGF, which is developing the project in partnership with DDA and is scheduled to complete it by April, is a joint venture between Dubai’s largest developer, Emaar Properties PJSC, and New Delhi-based developer MGF Development Ltd. The company is proposing a public issue of 117 million equity shares to raise Rs3,850 crore.

The penalty will be deducted from the performance guarantee that Emaar has given to DDA. In June 2007, Emaar MGF won the bid to build the Commonwealth Games Village on 118 acres near the Akshardham temple in east Delhi. Emaar is building 1,168 flats at the village for athletes and delegates.

Emaar MGF was to sell 790 flats at market rates and the rest were to be sold by DDA after the 3-14 October games at lower prices. After Emaar was unable to sell the flats, DDA agreed in May to purchase 333 of the 790 apartments for around Rs700 crore to bail out the cash-strapped developer. As of 31 August, the company has sold 632 of the 790 flats, it said in the prospectus. This includes the flats purchased by DDA.

Once the Commonwealth Games are over, the flats that have been booked will be handed over to buyers in January 2011.

For the year ended March, Emaar MGF made a net loss of Rs95.12 crore before minority interest on an income of Rs960.55 crore. In its prospectus, the firm also said that as of 31 August, the company’s outstanding loans amounted to Rs5,807.79 crore.

Emaar has restructured its existing rupee-denominated debt of around Rs2,000 crore by extending the duration of repayments and is also in discussions with certain lenders to reduce interest rates payable on some of the loans.

The company has a land bank of 11,340 acres, out of which around 76.4% comprises agricultural land for which the company has not yet obtained a certificate allowing the change of land use.

Get, set...365 days to go for CWG

With just 365 days left for the opening ceremony of Commonwealth Games 2010 to be held in the national Capital, the government and organisers of event are working to complete the infrastructure with the do-or-die deadline of March next year.

With more than Rs 12,000 crore having been spent, these are one of the most expensive Commonwealth Games. The 12-day event will include 17 sports at 23 competition venues. The government claims to provide over 40,000 rooms across all categories to accommodate the guests and officials.

But the slow pace of preparations and unmet deadlines have sparked fears over the success of the games. Many of the sports complexes are still far from completion. Around 14 of the 19 important venues are at risk of not being finished on time.

The chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Michael Fenell, said last week that he was extremely worried at the lack of progress at different venues and even urged the Prime Minister’s intervention to speed up things.

Nothing can be worse than the fact that two projects in Yamuna sports complex, where archery and table tennis competitions are to be held, have failed to get the nod of the Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC). It claims that there is inconsistency in the set of drawings submitted by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which has taken up the project.

In a recent announcement, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) had said all the infrastructure projects would be completed by December this year. Only the rugby space in Delhi University and the cycling velodrome at IG Stadium had a March 2010 deadline.

The OC chairperson, Suresh Kalmadi, has denied any delays in infrastructure deadlines and said most projects would be ready by December 2009, adding that, if some of them got delayed, they would definitely be ready by March 2010. “This is a challenge. There will be problems, but we will face the problems,” he said.

However, the facelift of Talkatora Stadium, where all boxing events will take place, was scheduled to be completed by this month. But, the work seems to be nowhere near completion.

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium is the main venue for the Games where the opening and closing ceremonies will take place. But with just three months to go for before its scheduled completion in December, only 48 per cent of the venue is ready. This is according to the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s report.

Also, the new shooting range coming up for the games is not even half ready. That is partly because the plans for the shooting range were revised several times and it delayed the commencement of the work. The construction started in October last year.

More than half of the 20 critical bridges, overpasses and thousands of promised hotel rooms might not meet the deadline.

The state government also recently shelved the plans to clean up capital’s slums and instead has decided to plant thousands of bamboo trees to shield the worst neighbourhoods from view.

It is the first time an international sporting event of this magnitude is being held in India. The last major multi-sport event held was the Asian Games in Delhi in 1982.

Incomplete projects

STADIUMS

JN Sports Complex- more than 50 % left
IG Sports Complex- more than 50 %left
Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range and CRPF campus, Kadarpur- more than 30 % left
Yamuna Sports Complex- more than 30% left
Siri Fort Sports Complex- more than 30% left

PARKINGS

Kushak nallah – more than 70% left
Hauz-Khas – work yet to start
Munirka- work yet to start
Model Town-II – work yet to start
Gandhi Nagar- work yet to start

FLYOVERS

Nellah Hauz Khas – more than 50% left
Barapullah nallah- more than 50% left
Azadpur- partially ready
RR Kohli Marg - partially ready
ITO chungi – partially ready

Be part of the Commonwealth Games team

Over 8,000 athletes, hundreds of delegates and several heads of state will converge in Delhi next year for the 19th Commonwealth Games . And, needless to say, the organizers are leaving no stone unturned -- from foolproof security to state-of-the-art stadia and infrastructure -- to make the event a success.

Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi is confident about India staging the Games successfully.

"We have hired many international experts to ensure there are no slip-ups," he told newspersons a couple of weeks back.

What he did not say was the lack of a workforce from home to man Games services, venue operations, technology and more.

A couple of months back the Games Organising Committee announced on its web site (http://www.cwgdelhi2010.org/) that it hiring staff for various positions. But with exactly 356 days for the Games to open it is still to enlist the required people.

'You can be a part of this dream team are you Game? It's a race against time. We are looking for an exceptional team to help us cross the finish line and deliver the best Commonwealth Games ever,' said the appeal.

Wake-Up Call For Us: Kalmadi, Fennell's Letter Has CWG Organising Body In A Tizzy

Michael Fennell's letter seems to have had a huge impact on the Organising Committee (OC) of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, as it has left the body in a tizzy.

The OC, which came in for sharp criticism from the Commonwealth Games Federation president earlier this week, admitted on Wednesday that the letter was indeed a "wake-up call" and that it was planning to ensure that Fennell won't have much to complain about when he visits the Capital next month for the General Assembly.

"We respect his views. It was sort of a wake-up call. The Games will be held in time. We will clear things when he visits next month," said Suresh Kalmadi, OC chairman and president of the Indian Olympic Association. The underfire politician was quick to add that he did not think Fennell's desire to meet the Prime Minister had anything to do with his lack of trust in the OC. "I don't think so. As far as his desire to meet the PM is concerned, we have referred the matter to sports ministry," he said.

Kalmadi, flanked by his trusted lieutenants and senior members of the OC, stressed that the preparations for the Games was heading in right direction and there was "great coordination" between the stakeholders.

"All work is going on at good pace. We have a great team (OC) to do the work. Government of India is fully behind us. There's a great co-ordination between everybody - IOA, government as well as the opposition," he said in his first interaction with the media ever since Fennell's letter came out in the open. Kalmadi said India is on track to host a "great Games" and to push his point, he cited the example of the Afro Asian Games and the National Games, the events which India conducted "successfully" in the past.

If the OC sees these events as benchmark, then the CWG 2010 are surely going to run into rough weather. The Afro Asian Games were termed a jinxed event after repeated postponements before being held in Hyderabad in 2003.

Similarly, IOA has struggled in the past to host the National Games and in fact the next edition of the Games in Jharkhand has been postponed several times and is finally scheduled to be held in November this year. Besides, the last year's Youth Commonwealth Games in Pune, the latest event to be conducted by IOA, were an operational disaster.

Meanwhile, OC's vice chairman , Randhir Singh, said the criticism was well-accepted. "Individuals do not matter. The idea of decentralisation means to involve more and more people in the process to make the Games a great one," he said, asking for decentralisation in OC.