ASIA NEWS SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 India Shifts Into High Gear to Revive Games

ASIA NEWS SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 India Shifts Into High Gear to Revive Games

By AMOL SHARMA in New Delhi and PAUL SONNE in London
India, facing intense pressure from sports officials around the world to show it is ready to host the Commonwealth Games, made a frantic push Thursday to clean up housing facilities and address safety concerns at venues.


India scrambled against the clock to save the Commonwealth Games after some athletes quit the event, and nations threaten to stay home unless authorities cleaned venues "unfit for human habitation." Video courtesy of Reuters.
Michael Fennell, the president of the U.K.-based Commonwealth Games Federation, which oversees the Games internationally, arrived in India late Thursday to survey the situation, with just nine days left before the opening ceremony. He has requested a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday, a federation spokesman said. For his part, Mr. Singh summoned his sports minister along with other top officials to an emergency meeting Thursday to assess the situation. Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of India's Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee, the local body that is managing the event, didn't attend, the Associated Press reported.

Games Federation officials said that despite all of the setbacks the Games have faced recently—from rain-soaked athletes' apartments in the Games Village to construction-site accidents near venues—the Games will be held as planned in New Delhi. Officials aren't seriously contemplating a postponement or relocation of the event.

Countries that had expressed concerns about sending their delegations given India's lack of preparations sounded a more positive note Thursday. Teams from England and Wales signaled that they would send their athletes after receiving assurances from the local organizing committee that accommodations would be swiftly cleaned and fixed.

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Sanjit Das/Panos for The Wall Street Journal.

India's preparations for the Commonwealth Games have included fumigating the streets of New Delhi to prevent the spread of malaria and dengue fever.
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"There has been an awful lot of work done today and there seems to be a great deal of urgency," the Englandspokesman said.

The Scottish delegation said that, subject to some more assurances from the Organizing Committee, it felt confident that its athletes would fly out as planned on Saturday.

The withdrawal of any major nation from the event, a gathering of 54 countries that includes Britain and its former colonies, would call into question the viability of the competition and deal an embarrassing blow to India.

A spokesman for Mr. Fennell said Games Federation officials and members from foreign delegations were impressed with New Delhi's sense of urgency, which was on display Thursday when India sent a large contingent of workers and engineers to the Games Village in a last-minute sprint to clean up dirty rooms, clear sidewalks of rubble and repair faulty electrical and plumbing fixtures.

Ian Emmerson, the regional vice president for Europe on the Commonwealth Games Federation executive board, said on Thursday that he expected the Games to go ahead as planned. "I think there's a lot of pressure being brought to bear, and things will be OK," said Mr. Emmerson, who is scheduled to depart the U.K. for Delhi on Monday.


Reuters

Also part of the preparations: cleaning dirty bathrooms at Games Village.
But questions remained. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in a television appearance, said her government considers there to be a "high risk of terrorism" in New Delhi.

She noted there have been at least 14 major terrorist attacks in the city since 2000 but added that it was up to individual athletes whether they wanted to participate. New Zealand's prime minister told Parliament that the nation's team could decide by Friday whether to attend.

Mr. Kalmadi said in a brief news conference that the country mission chiefs who are responsible for inspecting locales and advising their teams are "considerably more happy" than they were earlier in the week.

He added: "We will look after everybody well, and they will have a good time."

There are signs of increasing friction between Games Federation officials and Indian sport authorities over how India got to this point—struggling to make preparations in the final hours despite having more than seven years to organize the event.

The Games are organized in a similar manner to the Olympics. The Commonwealth Games Federation selects a host city through a bid process, and then signs a contract with the host city's organizing committee, which builds sites suitable for the event. The Games Federation does an official assessment of progress about twice a year, though Mr. Hooper lived in Delhi for the past few years to monitor progress.

Michael Hooper, chief executive of the federation, said New Delhi deserves the blame. Speaking to a news channel Thursday, he said, "At the end of the day, responsibility and delivering on the promises that were made sits with India."

On Tuesday, Mr. Hooper described the Games' accommodations as "filthy" and "uninhabitable." The federation official had sparred with top Indian Games officials several months ago when he tried to call attention to what he felt were worrying problems.

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Reuters

Accommodations are also being cleaned at the Games Village.
Bruce Robertson, vice president of the Games Federation, says it is the host city's responsibility to deliver the Games. The Federation is "not in the position to go into a sovereign country and deliver an event," Mr. Robertson says. "It really relies on the commitment and the undertakings put forward by the organizing committee and the host country."

India hosted the Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad in 2003, as well as the Asian Games in 1982 and 1951, but the country has had relatively little experience organizing such large-scale sporting events.

"This isn't really reflective of India's potential," Mr. Roberton said. "India can do this kind of event, there's no doubt about it."

The problems flagged so far are resolvable, Mr. Robertson said, so long as enough people work around the clock before the Games start.

—Paul Beckett in New Delhi contributed to this article.