DDA Commonwealth Games venues to overshoot deadlines

Weeks before the coordination committee of the Commonwealth Games Federation comes
for a recce on Delhi's preparedness for the Commonwealth Games 2010, talk of delays in the construction of competition venues has become reality. Officials at the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is in charge of two important competition venues as well as the Commonwealth Games Village along with several practice venues, admitted that deadlines have been moved from December 2009 to March 2010.


The admission comes days after the urban development minister, Jaipal Reddy, last Thursday said that work on Games-related projects was on time. Incidentally, the coordination committee of the CGF will be submitting the report which is expected to decide whether the Games preparations in the city need to be monitored by the CGF, as announced by CGF chief Mike Fennell earlier in October. The move had been rejected by the Organising Committee, which had later negotiated with the CGF for the CoCom to decide if such a committee was needed. The CoCom is expected to submit its report in December.

The two venues which are immediately affected are Siri Fort Complex and the Yamuna Sports Complex. Both are competition venues, with the Yamuna Sports Complex scheduled to hold the archery test event on March 7, 2010. Said a senior DDA official, "The YSC is expected to be complete by February so that the test event can be held there. However, the Siri Fort cannot be made ready before March 31, 2020.'' The delay in deadline comes even as officially, the land agency had been claiming a deadline in December 2009. Sources added that even in March, the handover of the venues would be partial, as landscaping and other finishing touches would still be going on.

The reason for the postponement in deadline, according to DDA officials, is the inordinate delay over deciding the FOP field of play, that is, the turf for the playing area and other parts of the venues. Said the official, "Majority of the work that remains is in the interiors, specially the FOP, electrical and other aspects.'' While at YSC the FOP has been laid in some of the badminton and the squash court, it is the archery venue at the Yamuna complex that the land agency is concentrating on. The complex is the main competition venue for table tennis and archery.

It's not the first venue which has been delayed. Earlier, Delhi government had admitted that the Thyagraj Stadium has also overshot its deadline of September, along with the various venues under the supervision of the SAI. DDA officials, however, claim the delay would not impact preparations. Said a senior official, "The venues will be complete with plenty of time left for the OC to get the stadia ready for the Games.''