Wanted: 3,000 drivers; Pay: double than usual

The Commonwealth Games organisers are on a massive hunt for drivers. They immediately need 3,000 of them who know Delhi like the back of their hand and also understand foreign accents. The Games Organising Committee (OC) will have around 2,000 cars at their disposal, thanks to Tata Motors, but they
are facing acute shortage of chauffeurs.

The fleet of cars, which include Indigo Excel, Grande and Safari, will ferry athletes and Games officials from airport to hotels and venues.

Though the job of recruiting drivers have been entrusted to Tata Motors, OC has also pitched in with less than three months left for the event.

“The vehicle providers will bring their own drivers but we are facilitating the process,” said OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot. “We are also trying to bring drivers from different sources. We have identified a large number of drivers and are interviewing them at present.”

Bhanot said that the drivers were expected to know all major roads and routes in Delhi.

“We will require about 3,000 drivers to work in different shifts and also in reserve,” he said.

To lure and retain drivers for the short period of about two months, they will be offered double salaries.

Sources said that while drivers are usually paid Rs 200 per day, those driving for the Games will be paid up to Rs 500.

“There is an acute shortage of drivers in Delhi as it is and we are talking to different sources to facilitate the recruitment of drivers,” said Anil Chhikara, who is in charge of the project.

Chhikara is a Motor Licensing Officer of Delhi Government’s Transport Department on deputation in the Committee.

“We will train the drivers in courteous behaviour and also give them accent training so they can understand what foreign dignitaries tell them,” he said.

Now, cops want Ramlila fairs to be rescheduled

The Delhi Police wants you safe during the Commonwealth Games (CWG), even if it means locking you away for two weeks. After asking popular markets and schools to remain shut during the Games citing ‘security reasons’, the city police now have Ramlila celebrations on the radar. “We are asking that
the fairs associated with the Ramlila be rescheduled. The fairs have no religious relevance and could be organised three or four days later,” Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S Dadwal told reporters at the Police Headquarters on Tuesday.

The Commonwealth Games that will be held in Delhi from October 3 to 14 will coincide with the annual Ramlila fairs organised throughout the capital around October 7.

Needless to say, organisers of the religious-cum-community events are fuming.

“How can the commissioner say the fairs associated with these events are irrelevant? The fairs are what draw the people to them,” said Subhash Goyal who organises Chandni Chowk’s popular Luv-Kush Ramlila.

Goyal argued that the fairs transform the religious nature of the event to that of a community festival.

“It is the fairs that draw the crowd, especially children, to the Ramlila.

A child may not be interested in reading the Ramayana, but once he or she gets drawn to the Ramlila by the rides or the good food he is automatically drawn to watch the larger than life enactment of the epic on stage, irrespective of religion,” Goyal said.

Commissioner Dadwal however, was of the opinion that the Games were of much more importance to the city.

“We are having an event of national importance and people are more worried about holding 'melas' (fairs),” he said.

The organisers said that the Games were important in their own right but incomparable to traditional celebrations that had their origins in history.

“The Games have their origin in the British Empire, which is new when compared with the history of our religion,” said Goyal.

Dheeraj Bansidhar, who organises the Dharmik Ramlila at the parade grounds, said, “We are yet to receive any intimation from the Delhi Police. How and why will they stop us from organising our Ramlila? We shall discuss the matter with Commissioner Dadwal himself,” he said.

Labour crunch hits Commonwealth Games work, too

The step-up in urgency on unfinished Commonwealth Games work has increased the cost of labour in Delhi, besides creating more labour shortages in the real estate and construction industry.

The labour shortage for the Games is about 20 per cent, according to Rakesh Mehta, chief secretary of the Delhi city government. He told Business Standard several projects are suffering due to this problem.

In addition, with the monsoon, labourers are returning to their villages to do farm work.

The industry says labour cost has gone up by 40-60 per cent in the past 18-odd months in the National Capital Region. “Labour costs have risen sharply, mainly due to steep inflation in food articles’ prices, and consequent revision in statutory minimum wages, and partly due to the time-bound nature of Commonwealth Games related works. Contractors are willing to offer more,” says Vineet Relie, COO of SARE- India, a Delhi-based real estate company.

Some believe the MGNREGA, the national rural jobs guarantee scheme, is also leading to a labour crunch in cities. “We are noticing now that people from villages do not have to come out to bigger cities because there are lots of infrastructure projects like power, roads, etc taking place within their vicinity,” says Santosh Rungta, President, Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (Credai).

THE SHORTFALL
* C'Wealth Games rush adds to labour shortage
* Labour costs have been rising
* NREGA and like schemes provide options to labour migration
* There is a near-50% gap between demand and supply 
* Skill training and upgrades needs govt-industry combine
* Human and family needs of labourers also need addressing

No training structure
Industry representatives says there have been major delays in completion of ongoing projects due to this. “There has been a crunch in not only the skilled and unskilled labour in the real estate industry but also at the managerial level, because we are witnessing a lot of top management people moving to other industries like telecommunication, FMCG, pharmaceutical, etc. The problem with real estate is that we do not have any educational institute which trains people to be recruited in this industry,” says Anuj Puri, chairman and country head, Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj.

The industry says since there is no institutional mechanism for artisanal skill training, there is a general shortage of skilled labour, due to general increase in construction volume, including the Games. The industry estimates the demand and supply gap at 40-50 per cent.

The crunch is not going to be resolved with Games work coming to a finish. As the metro and airport projects start in other parts of India, contractors would pull this labour (engaged in the games, metro and airport work in Delhi) to those cities, as this kind of infrastructure job needs highly skilled labour. “Thus there is a need to have government and industry funded training programs, a notch below Industrial Training Institutes, with faculty having topical training methods,” says Relie.

“Recent advances in technologies can be adopted to fill this gap. And, dependence on labourers can be reduced by adopting machine-made technologies. Also, developers need to adopt good practices to retain workers, like providing social security, food and creches to their children,” says Navin Raheja, MD, Raheja Developers.

Remedies
As remedial measures, the industry is adopting less labour-intensive and more mechanised ways like using concrete pumps, batching plants and tower cranes. Laminated wooden floors are being used instead of conventional floor finishes. Similarly, labour-intensive items like external plaster and paint are being substituted by glass and aluminum composite panel facades. Some companies like Ashiana have developed in-house training programs. In addition, the industry is encouraging labourers to work in double shifts and training unskilled ones to become skilled.

Presently, India employs 33 million labourers in the infrastructure and real estate sectors and this number is expected to touch 85 million in the next 10 years. Industry representatives say some clear steps need to be taken to battle the crunch. Harmit Chawla, VP, sales and marketing, Paras Buildtech Ltd, says, “There is a need to create vocational training institutions at the grassroot level for various trades.”

“Labours should be encouraged to visit bigger cities, by providing their families with facilities like schools, colleges, medical amenities. Today, the agricultural income in smaller villages has increased and this stops people from visiting bigger cities for labour jobs. Moreover, there are a lot of labourers who prefer going to the Middle East countries, as they get well paid there,” says Rungta.

Recently, Credai started a pilot project in Pune, where a mobile van helps in training villagers about the technical know-how of being a labourer. It hopes to extend this to more cities in the coming months.

Queen's Baton Relay arrives in Guwahati

Braving inclement weather, the residents of Guwahati turned out in large number to receive the Queen's Baton, on the country-wide relay of the 2010 Commonwealth Games at Delhi.

The Baton, arrived at Guhawati this afternoon, and was received ceremonially by Assam Olympic Association general secretary and forest minister Rockybul Hussain at a brief function held at the Nehru Stadium here.

The Baton was then handed over to the state chief secretary NK Das and director general of police Shankar Barua who in turn handed it over to several veteran and present international and national players from the state before it was carried in a convoy to the state secretariat at Dispur.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi received the Baton at the state secretariat, and after a brief felicitation of players from the state, the baton was handed over to Arjuna awardee table tennis player Monalisa Barua Mehta.

Mehta resumed the last leg of the rally here to the Srimanata Sankardeva Kalakshetra, the premier cultural hub of region, and was joined by Assam Director of Sports and Youth Welfare Sanjiv Gohain Boruah and Sports Authority of India's North East Director Subhas Basumatary enroute.

A colourful cultural function and fireworks display were held at Kalakshetra before the Baton was handed over by Assam sports minister Bharat Narah to the Chef de Mission of the Indian Commonwealth team, Rajya Sabha MP Bhubaneswar Kalita and Baton Relay director Colonel Kuldip Singh for its onward journey to the Meghalaya capital Shillong.

Commonwealth Games lays bare India's infrastructure woes

India aims the Commonwealth Games will be a showcase of its economic clout, but with less than three months to go, the world's third largest sporting event is instead laying bare its perennial infrastructure problems.

The Games, held every four years and grouping athletes from the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations, are intended to be India's answer to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, hailed as a success for its economic and political rival China.

But while China set out to wow the world with iconic structures such as the Bird's Nest stadium, many Commonwealth Games venues in New Delhi are far from finished while others are falling apart under the force of a few weeks of monsoon rains.

A shooting range built for the Games, and inaugurated two months ago, was extensively damaged by heavy rains earlier this month, Indian media reported. At another complex, rains felled the false ceiling and other venues have sprung leaks.

Shoddy construction is one of the challenges Asia's third-biggest economy faces as it gears up to take on big-ticket projects needed to propel growth to China's double-digit rates.

Analysts say one of the main problems is a government practice of awarding contracts -- regardless of their size -- to the lowest bidders, which are often smaller, more aggressive, but less experienced construction firms which also lack the manpower needed to implement such projects.

Contractors also sometimes take short-cuts when they're running over budget or running out of time.

This often translates into sub-standard structures, and this is a problem that would remain even if the oft-cited difficulties of getting land and necessary bureaucratic clearances are solved.

"Quality, yes, there is a serious issue in India. Developers are stretched and a lot of sub-contacting is happening," said Nandita Vohra, a senior consultant to the Asian Development Bank.

"Two or three levels down, one feels the supervision is not as intense as it is needed."

CUTTING COSTS AND CORNERS

India expects to spend $1 trillion, a sum roughly the size of its GDP, between 2012 and 2017 to boost its infrastructure. This is double of what it will spend in the five years to 2012.

Some of this spending has been fast-tracked due to the Games: in addition to venues, a new airport terminal is due to open this month and new subways and roads are being built specifically for the athletes and the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected.

New Delhi is also going through a makeover, with its colonial buildings being renovated and sidewalks ripped out to be repaved. Residents grumble about the chaos, pointing to rubble everywhere and roads that cave in due to underground tunnelling.

"The scale and ability of contractors is going to be a huge issue and a risk for projects," Arvind Mahajan, an infrastructure specialist at consultancy KPMG, told Reuters.

"Many of the bigger and key contractors are sold out, and cost factors, too, are pushing people to look at these smaller players. But if you push too much on cost, the quality would suffer, either in terms of execution or timelines not being adhered to," he added.

The infrastructure woes dogging the Games are not the first example of an Indian signature project going awry. Work on the Delhi Metro, a project backed by top officials, was delayed after an overhead bridge collapse in July 2009, killing five workers. A month later, strong winds blew off the roof of the new airport.

While the construction opportunities in India are huge and capital is plentiful, analysts rue there aren't enough large-scale, quality projects worth financing.

"There is a paucity of high quality, or even quality, projects that are financeable. It's not a question of capital being inadequate," Anil Ahuja, Asia head of private equity firm, told a recent conference as the audience nodded in approval.

Commonwealth Games: A stepping stone for the future

Our honourable sports minister has every reason to be disappointed, when he finds some of the top names missing from the Commonwealth Games list of participants. After all, the October Games will surely be the biggest sports event that India would host during his tenure. One can't blame him for wanting it to be a memorable one.

Not just the sports minister, every Indian would be disappointed at not finding a Usain Bolt or an Asafa Powell on the start list of the 100m. Wouldn't it have been great to have a Bolt-Powell collision in our very own New Delhi? There was always a chance that Powell would have pushed Bolt towards a world record. There are so many possibilities when two of the world's best sprinters face off.

However, before we let our disappointment set in, we must remember that the Commonwealth Games have never been a favourite among athletes. The third largest Games after the Olympics and the Asian Games does not rank anywhere near them in popularity.

Even if Bolt and Powell had decided to compete, it is unlikely that they would have come up with very good timings. The New Delhi Commonwealth Games will be held at the fag end of the calendar year and this is the time when athletes prefer to either preserve themselves, or rest and recuperate for the next season. With top athletes planning for the World Championships next year, Commonwealth Games was never a priority.

Donning the country colours is a matter of pride for every athlete and the Bolts and Powells might have missed an opportunity. However, they have done so at the highest level (the Olympic Games) and the CWG might not have been enough to inspire them.

Powell, incidentally is the defending champion in 100m sprint, having won in Melbourne with a time of 10.03s. Not too flattering by his standards. Incidentally, the 2006 Melbourne Games were held in March, a time of the year when athletes are gradually moving towards their peak form.

Surely, Bolt and Powell would be missed, as would British cyclists Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, tennis player Andy Murray and Jamaica's women's Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser.

Fraser, incidentally has failed a dope test and remains provisionally suspended.

Despite his disappointments, minister MS Gill might have a lot to look forward to. The standard of competitions will still be high. Some of the winners here would be faces for the future. And most importantly, India's capability to hold major international tournaments would be tested.

Gill might not go down in history as the sports minister who managed to bring the world's best sprinter to India, but his ministry will be remembered for playing a major role in shaping the country's future as a sporting nation.

Gill, and every one associated with sport, should look upon the Commonwealth Games as a stepping stone towards better things. If India manages to conduct a successful tournament, the world might just be convinced that the nation is ready to host the Olympics, or at least the Asian Games. So far, any talks on India bidding for the Olympic Games has appeared too farfetched. The Commonwealth Games might just change that perception. For that, everyone — from Gill downwards — has to be convinced that come October, we are poised to take a giant step forward in our quest towards become a respected sporting nation.

Officials stay in denial, but start repairs

A day after Hindustan Times exposed the dilapidated state to which the Commonwealth Games shooting range at Kadarpur had been reduced to by a few spells of rain, sports ministry officials remained officially in denial, even as they embarked on damage control. On Monday, workers swarmed the shooting range, trying to repair the damage. Yet a senior ministry official told HT, "No major structural damage has taken place. The embankments have been washed away but this is normal during the rainy season."

"There is no structural damage at Kadarpur. All venues are of international standard and the country will face no embarrassment," Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary in the sports ministry, said.

The Central Public Works Department sent its own denial to HT with chief engineer S M Amrit claiming the shooting range was "in sound condition, and if required, games can be held there even today."

Repair work at other venues referred to in the report was restarted as well. Closer scrutiny was not possible, as security around most venues had been tightened following the report.