CWG: Only games, no sport

The Holy Lord, a last-minute miraculous falling in place of things, a big stick, generous money flow and the rare coming together of the ‘world famous in India’ babudom will probably scrape us through the Commonwealth Games (CWG). The tragic, ‘unHindi’ movie ending to the tale is that India is unlikely to emerge the undisputed winner even if she successfully manages to wave off the last athlete into the final departing flight of an A-380 from the hopefully still swanky T3 terminal.

But why then would India still be a loser ? The answer will be clear to those who saw the organisation of CWG in the country as the opportunity to start transforming the way India works. CWG presented India the great opportunity to overhaul its urban work processes and the way its big cities live and grow. This was the big takeaway from the Games. More flyovers, stadiums, wider roads and better pavements are the body, not the soul.

By now, we know that many big athletes will be skipping the meet. But then, they were just an excuse to begin with. The idea was to use the event to transform the Capital into a modern, organised city that announces to the world that it is prepared to receive, assimilate and make fruitful use of the influences and investment that a fast-growing country like India will attract. The lessons of Delhi could then have been applied to other big and emerging cities.

The way Delhi has gone about it shows how we have, once more, failed to catch the proverbial bus. Hopelessly-delayed construction projects show how the city has failed to adopt modern project management practices and technology that monitor and ensure timely execution of projects. It is absolutely clear that local bodies will continue to face delays in project execution even in works they undertake after the Games are over. So, did the city become efficient? Certainly not.

This was also a golden opportunity for the Delhi government to reorganise, revitalise and rework its arms — get various urban municipal bodies in sync with each other’s plans and projects.

CWG was the just the perfect excuse to make our municipal bodies self-sustaining, citizen-friendly urban development centres. Without that, post-CWG, one arm of the Delhi government will continue to cut up a new road built by another arm to implement a project local people will find little use of. And, all of them will continue to beg the government for money for salaries even in 2011 and thereafter. Did we create a sustainable, mutually-beneficial municipal ecosystem ? Doesn’t seem so.

The software industry has given the country the image of an efficient, low-cost executioner of hi-tech projects. The Nano, on the other hand, has surprised the world with extraordinary innovation at a low cost. But Delhi has failed to imbibe the spirit. Ballooning Games bill is only indicative of how inefficiently money has been spent on projects with low RoI. Have we ensured that future projects in the city will balance development needs with aesthetics, environment friendliness and with cost? You know the answer.

The callousness towards public safety is an indicator of another task left unaccomplished. Dug-up roads, with pedestrians and traffic jostling for space is indicative of the current municipal mindset. Do we really implement city projects in a way that it doesn’t affect the ecosystem of the rest of the city? Have we institutionalised the process that lets us successfully integrate an existing, living, breathing city with the growth needs of a decade later? I wouldn’t even venture near answering that.

Will illegal constructions stop? Will there be a structured response to labour migration into the city? Can we now swiftly respond to natural and manmade calamities? Can the Capital boast of something as basic as 100%-sanitation toilets? Should the city need these big, expensive jumps every few years or should it be able to stealthily add capacity each year? And, a question no one is really asking: will the CWG imbibe the culture and spirit of sport among young Indians? To be fair, answers are not a resounding no, but, not many are likely say an emphatic yes either.

Finally, if creating physical infrastructure was the sole objective of the games, has Delhi developed enough to easily hold an equally-big global meet? Will some organiser in some part of the world tell thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of delegates that, hey, let’s hold our meet in Delhi? Let alone that, is Delhi prepared for the next Auto Expo?