Panel breaks catering tender into three

The Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, which is still finding catering for the event too hot to handle, has now decided to break the problem down to bite sizes to make it easy. Instead of one tender for all catering needs, from athletes to security staff, three tenders will now be floated.

Till now the Organising Committee has only signed a single catering contract, with Australian firm Delaware North, for the Games Village. The Committee still has no clue who will serve food at the competition and non-competition venues to athletes, games technical officials, VIPs, workforce, volunteers and security staff.

After a bit of a reshuffle in staff who are handling the catering, the Committee is trying to sort out the matter now. The catering has been divided into three parts with separate tenders for VIPs, which includes athletes, technical officials and games officials, another for the workforce, volunteers and security staff and the last for food stalls to cater to spectators.

For VIPs, the organising committee is discussing the possibility of hiring the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation. “The way talks are going on at present it is highly unlikely that the OC and IRCTC will be able to iron out a deal. We will have to float a tender,” said a senior Organising Committee official.

The catering budget has already gone haywire and the committee wants Rs 121 crore more. Even the Rs 106-crore Games Village contract was signed after the tender was floated twice. Delaware North’s first bid was rejected on the excuse that the firm had not paid the earnest money.

The Committee had invited an expression of interest for providing catering services at competition and non-competition venues in 11 parts. Five firms had submitted their bids totaling around Rs 77.93 crore. After negotiations the amount came down to Rs 73.22 crore. The Committee, which had initially fixed the total catering budget at Rs 63.33 crore, found this too high. After trimming the menu and number of people the price came down to Rs 68.46 crore. But even this price was way too high, so all tenders were cancelled. No contracts, however, had been signed with any firm.

Delegates briefed about Games security

Delegates from 71 Commonwealth Games federations are in the Capital for a last-minute briefing to clear doubts related to security for the event. On Wednesday, the delegates were briefed about security arrangements by the Delhi Police and CISF. The CISF is in charge of the venues, while the Delhi Police are responsible for the overall security and traffic management. Off late several think-tanks across the globe have expressed security concerns about the Games. Many have even warned that Delhi would be attacked by Lashkar operatives. “We have briefed all delegates and cleared their doubts about any security threat to the Games. We have also told them in detail about the security arrangements in place,” said Delhi Police special commissioner Neeraj Kumar.