COMMONWEALTH GAMES AND CONCERN

After the 1982 Asian Games, our next big date with sports is October 2010, when we host the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Delhi. Hosting such prestigious event is certainly a great honour and a matter of pride for us. At the same time, it is a challenge for the government to get the requisite sports infrastructure and other amenities ready in time to stage the Games successfully.

But it seems "We are in a state of last minute panic. There is a legitimate concern on whether the infrastructure necessary for the Games will be completed on time. We got the project in 2003 and the international committee visited India in 2005. I don't understand why the stadium construction should have started as late as 2008. The conflict between the international committee and ours was also evident by Mike Fennel and Kalmadi goof-ups."

Federation president Mike Fennell said in December he was distressed by a report by the CGF evaluation commission that two major venues would not be ready until June, barely three months before the opening ceremony. The commission said that work on the Nehru stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics programme will be held, and the swimming complex, was way behind schedule.

Reminding that time was running out fast, Fennell said, "Two years before the Games, I had told the OC that time was not your friend and now one year before it, I say time is your enemy. But together, we can defeat it."

Steps against security concerns

Before the games, City will be secured by CCTV cameras at 58 important markets and 27 border checkpoints.

C4i is being set up at Police headquarter for use during CW games and beyond. C4i is a control room linked with cyber highway, an integrated communication network for use in convergent services and a central command operations. The C4i will be linked to all the staff on the ground and subsidiary bases on wireless sets, tetranet, mobile phones and landlines.

According to the plan, the police will install intelligent traffic system (ITS) on the routes that would be in use during the Commonwealth Games for effective monitoring of traffic. In the first phase, 87 roads covering about 210km of road length and 220 intersections will be covered. There are also plans to start e-challaning scheme.

The traffic police is also in the process of acquiring modern enforcement equipment like hand-held radar runs with night vision facility, lux meters and driving simulators.

An automated fingerprint and palm identification system, the first for the country, will be installed at 135 police stations in the city to provide ink-less scanning, paper data capturing, transmission and query of rolled finger and palm prints.

The process of issuing biometric identification cards for security reasons to all taxi drivers operating at IGI Airport have already kicked off. Delhi Police commissioner YS Dadwal said the scheme will be extended to all taxi and auto drivers in the city before the Games. The IDs will ensure security of passengers hailing cabs and autos in the city that is expecting a huge influx of foreign and domestic tourists during the Commonwealth Games in October.

And, newly set-up UIDAI (Unique ID Authority of India) may play a vital role in making the Capital ‘secure’ by issuing biometric ID cards to all the citizens of Delhi-NCR , well before the Games start. As per the time line of the UIDAI project, the first UID numbers will be issued over the next 12-18 months counted from August 2009. The first number would be issued between August 2010 to February 2011. Over five years, the Authority plans to issue 600 million UIDs. The numbers will be issued through various ‘registrar’ agencies across the country.

Other Aspects in CW games

As an allied beneficiary, tourism ministry is actively promoting its Atithi Devo Bhavah (Guest is God) campaign to sensitise the stakeholders towards tourists, through a process of training and orientation. It is busy creating awareness about the positive impact of tourism on local economy, building importance of basic hygiene and hospitality and emphasising the need for preservation of our rich heritage and culture.

Moreover, HDTV broadcast (high definition TV) is scheduled for launch by 2010 to bring lively coverage of the event to our living rooms. 3G (third generation) telecom services are also expected to be fully operational by then to provide a similar experience to its ‘users on the move’. Both these technologies will offer ‘near-live experience’, “at a distance”, indirectly bringing down some burden on the transport system.

For the sake of CWG and our sportspersons, it is high time that we get the focus of our sports policy right. We must get out of controversies like ‘stand on WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) guidelines’, selection of injured players, pay-offs for selection in teams etc and draw-up an event-wise plan to hit a century of medals at XIX Games.

The plan must be made public, coaches and selectors should be given targets and state-wise implementation programme must be monitored to achieve the targets.

It is also important that our focus on games infrastructure readiness and event organisation must not end up in “we also participated in the sports event”.

Our performance in the last few Games has been fairly ordinary and far below our stature. We only managed to get 4th rank from 71 participating nations, by winning 7% medals from around 250 events, in the last two editions. Prior to that, our record was poorer with merely 3.5% of the medals to our credit. As against that, Australia has been on top every time, winning 25-30 % of the medals. And, top three nations – Australia, England and Canada, together claimed around 60% medals on each occasion.