Why we shouldn’t be hosting the Games

We now know what the Commonwealth Games stand for. (It’s) Common (for everyone to make) Wealth (at these) Games. Toilet rolls for Rs4,000 each! Must be gold-laced. Treadmills at Rs27 lakh! The high end ones cost less than a tenth of that.

Whatever explanation Suresh Kalmadi and his cohorts have to offer for this kind of criminal folly, it’s clear that the Games have been run on two premises. First, the organisers were sure the government would keep on pouring more money since national prestige was involved. Second, the organisers were sure that no questions would be asked. Pity they forgot the media.

There are two questions that arise from the controversy. The first is basic: should India be hosting the Commonwealth Games (CWG) at all. The second is whether we are capable of handling an event of this magnitude.

It may be a bit late to raise the first question, but it can be asked because Kalmadi and the IOA have their sights on the Asian Games and the Olympics after that. The simple answer to the question is thus No. At least not for the next few decades. The basic argument for holding large sporting events is that you create infrastructure. Heaven knows we need infrastructure, but is all of it needed only in Delhi?

That’s the problem: suddenly Delhi will have a whole lot of stadia, but not the rest of India. If you wanted to build infrastructure, you would draw up a master plan and distribute facilities around the country taking into consideration the sports specialty of each region. Football stadia? Look at Bengal, Goa and Kerala. Which of them needs one urgently? Hockey? Punjab, Haryana. Archery? The North East. Wrestling? UP. And so on.

Planning systematically will be of real benefit to sportsmen. It also ensures that the construction is phased out, say over 10 years, rather than rushed through in two or three years. It means better buildings, not shoddy construction.

There is yet another point about infrastructure. The CWG will now cost the massive sum of Rs35,000crore. A master plan would use only a part of this total. It would earmark a portion for developing sportspersons. How often do we read about the lack of money for sporting academies (cricket always excepted)? How often have we heard complaints about the lack of good coaches because they are too expensive (cricket always excepted)?

The second question seems unpatriotic because it questions our ability to stage an event like the CWG. Why can’t we? After all, our industrialists set up massive infrastructure and manufacturing plants in record time, so organisation and planning aren’t foreign to our temperament.

The basic problem is with who’s in charge. An industrial house has an organisational structure built on well-designed hierarchies. Every person has a career at stake.

An Organising Committee like the one for the CWG is an ad hoc group of individuals who are either sports politicians or bureaucrats on temporary loan to committees. They have almost nothing at stake. Is it any surprise the nation’s money is being wasted?

Kalmadi was once very proud of his Grand Design for sports in India. It was to spread a sports culture through the country by building facilities in each state by holding our annual National Games at different venues each year. It was a sound idea worthy of implementation. How does holding of the CWG fit in with that vision?