50 days to go: Can the CWG mess be cleared in time?

Five years after the plan to redevelop Connaught Place was finalised, the city's stylish central plaza looks like a war-ravaged zone. And just 50 days remain for the Commonwealth Games. Can this collosal mess be cleared in time?

That's today the Rs 450-crore question - the amount that is being spent, ostensibly for the city's beautification before the Games but which now threatens to become a huge embarrassment for the city, indeed, for India. Who is responsible for this? Not Suresh Kalmadi, in this instance, but NDMC and its parent ministry, the urban development ministry.

New stretches are being dug up in CP and old ones hurriedly filled up. Consider this: work on the three new subways that was begun has been stopped midway and the pits are being covered up only to be reopened after the event. There are pipes, cables and mounds of earth strewn all over, walkways are still being built, and the middle circle is a cavernous pit in many places.

The man who has the answers to questions like why NDMC sat on the plan for four years and started work on a project 19 months before the Games when by its own admission it should take 18-24 months - NDMC chairmanParimal Rai - appears to have gone under the radar. Despite repeated attempts by TOI throughout the day he would not respond to any of our queries.

Still, the questions demand an answer. When it took a full one year to complete the "model" C Block of CP, how did NDMC think it could fix all of CP in just 19 months? NDMC spokesman Anand Tiwari parroted stock excuses - how difficult it is to do work on a "live" street, how the subways could not be readied in time as there was a drainage junction that was discovered in the course of digging, etc.

Well, that it was a "live" street wasn't a state secret before the work was started, nor would a drainage problem have been a mystery if sewerage maps had been consulted. So, what was the tearing hurry to start the work and present the city and the nation with a humungous mess? Couldn't work wait till the Games were over?

This was Tiwari's brave answer: "We could not have waited till after the Games to start work because the two-year contract (with the contractor) is due to expire in June 2011. How could we keep all work for the last six months? And work had to be started because a lot of CP was crumbling. Would you want tourists to see a crumbling CP?"

But would we want them to see a ploughed-up CP? No chance, he assures. CP will be ready by August 31 "plus minus a few days here and there." TOI finds the claims very, very difficult to believe, although it would be the happiest if it were to be proved wrong.

As the skeleton strength of shoppers negotiate mounds of earth and balance themselves on makeshift "bridges" to get from one side to the other, it is indeed difficult to believe the assurances. Specially when of the 16 blocks where work is on, only seven have been completed so far. Only six parking lots outside of the blocks are ready and work on the middle circle road is on.

And what about the extra cost of the go-stop-go pace of work, like with the subways? "It's nominal compared to the scale of the work," Tiwari offers. But he did not give the cost escalation figure, choosing to give instead the total cost of the subway project - Rs 60 crore.

The money is big indeed. The sum allocated is Rs 450 crore, but the entire project cost is estimated to go up to a stunning Rs 860 crore, to be spent over a three-year period. Critics say that the whole project smacks of a contractor-government agency nexus, although there is no evidence yet to prove it.
Tiwari says: "Work began in 2009, as getting permission from government bodies took time. There will be a visible change in CP by August 31. Everything will be in place as far as public convenience is concerned."

Despite having initial plans of constructing eight subways, NDMC got permission to start work on only three of the subways. The three subways - two at Punchkuian Road and another at BKS Marg - have been covered with loose earth and a road will be made over it. The entry and exit points of the subway will be blocked only temporarily and work on the subways will resume after Games. In fact, the road along Punchkuian road will have to be dug up again as the work of creating retaining wall has not been completed.

Said Tiwari: "NDMC will take up subway work along the middle carriageway of the Outer Circle after Games with work having been completed at the two ends. However, digging will have to be carried out at Punchkuian Road again on the sides again." The openings made for installing escalators at the existing five subways too have been closed.