Commonwealth Games: Only 6 Village towers ready

It's not just the Delhi government facing a manpower crunch for completion of projects related to the Commonwealth Games 2010. Lack of adequate manpower has also had an impact on the work at the Commonwealth Games Village.

According to sources, ITDC, which has been entrusted with the task of furnishing the 34 towers at the Village, has managed to furnish only about six till date. The reason is reportedly lack of adequate labour force. The handover of the Village to the Organising Committee takes place on August 1.

Said a senior official, "The agreement with ITDC was that furnishing of the towers would be completed in three weeks from the day they were handed over to them by the venue owners, in this case, the Delhi Development Authority.'' The handover took place a fortnight ago, claimed DDA officials.

However, less than 10 towers have been furnished till date a fact that has sent distress signals in government circles. Said a senior official, "Of the three weeks that ITDC was supposed to take to finish furnishing the flats, more than a week has gone by. The 1,100-odd flats are now expected to be ready only by August 25.''

ITDC officials, meanwhile, refused to comment on the reason for the delay. PRO, Manjula Arun, directed queries to the ITDC chairman, Lalit Pawar, who was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts.

Sources, however, admit that the reason behind the delay is the lack of manpower. "The work is progressing at a slow pace because enough labour is not available. It's a long process as furnishings like television sets, refrigerators, furniture and decoration pieces have to be unwrapped, put together and set up in every room. It requires a lot of manpower.''

The lack of manpower, in fact, had prompted the L-G, Tejendra Khanna, to visit the Village site on July 20, and ask for augmentation of manpower at the site to enable completion by July 31. It wasn't the first such visit by the L-G. Said Ranjan Mukherjee, OSD to the L-G, "The L-G has been visiting the Village regularly so that preparations get a fillip. The impact is visible: The developers have handed over more than 20 towers to DDA till date, and the rest will be done over the next week.''

DDA officials, meanwhile, say the process to hand over the towers to ITDC for furnishing began in early July. Said a senior DDA official, "The first tower was handed over more than a fortnight ago. We have been handing over the rest as and when we got them from the developers.''

Sources confirmed that some items were still to be received from China, from where ITDC is sourcing them.