When it comes to staging a farce, India provides the kind of original material that even Bollywood screenwriters could not dream up.
Take the ongoing saga of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The event was mired in controversy over the mismanagement of funds – with allegations of bid tampering, elevated costs, unnecessary work and poor quality workmanship all levelled on the Games, before they had even started.
The collapse of a footbridge leading to the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium that injured 23 labourers during the final few days before the event was, for many, just another in a long line of embarrassments for the Games organising committee.
The scale of the cost overruns for the Games is staggering. Even before the first athletes had set foot on Indian soil, a report by India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) entitled Preparedness for the XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 put the cost of hosting the games, creating the venues and developing city infrastructure at around $2.7bn.
The initial Bid Book Budget set the cost of the games at $422m which, according to planners, would be enough to renovate existing stadiums, build new venues and stage the Games. It is clear, from the following months, that this was a very optimistic figure.
An independent report titled The 2010 Commonwealth Games: Whose Wealth, Whose Commons?, commissioned by India’s Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), claims that spending on sports infrastructure and facilities alone had shot up to $730m – more than 16 times the original total, and almost double that of the entire original budget. The report also stated that the true cost of the Games lay somewhere between the official figure of $2.7bn and independent estimates of $6.5bn. Someone, somewhere managed to get things very wrong indeed.
The first scalps were netted earlier this year when police arrested sacked Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and two others, and charged them with fraud. The charges arose in connection to an allegation of overpaying Swiss firm Swiss Timing Ltd. for timing and scorekeeping equipment. Kalmadi denied the claims, and was remanded in custody to Tihar prison. Things took a turn for the bizarre when news broke that three Tihar prison officials were suspended for allegedly giving Kalmadi “undue liberty”.
The inquiry came after a surprise visit by a trial court judge in early July 2011, who found Kalmadi “sitting with jail superintendent Shri Bhardwaj and enjoying tea/coffee and biscuit/namkeens. In late July, proceedings took another twist when a Delhi court ordered that Kalmadi undergo a brain scan to determine if he was suffering from dementia. Official findings of the scan were suppressed by the court, and everyone privy to the information forbidden from making it public – including Kalmadi himself.
In late October 2011, he asked that prosecutors clarify questions over their investigations into the Commonwealth Games to “clarify if the continuing further probe to unearth a larger conspiracy, to identify the money trail and additional facts, is over or not.”
It is that last bit that seemed to irk the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the most. The agency said it had repeatedly stated in the court that the investigation regarding the accused named in the charge sheet was complete, but that despiter that, applications are being filed by the accused to delay the proceedings.
India needs answers, and Kalmadi needs to start providing them, in order to preserve the legacy of the Games. He has been incarcerated for six months, and the seeming lack of urgency on his behalf to argue his case and get out of prison is not the reasoning one would normally associate with an innocent individual. Whether he’s guilty or not, Kalmadi needs to explain just how the budgets were overstepped by such a high margin.
Carlin Gerbich is a senior reporter for Construction Week.
Bollywood farce
Not even Bollywood screenwriters could dream of making this stuff up
When it comes to staging a farce, India provides the kind of original material that even Bollywood screenwriters could not dream up.
Take the ongoing saga of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The event was mired in controversy over the mismanagement of funds – with allegations of bid tampering, elevated costs, unnecessary work and poor quality workmanship all levelled on the Games, before they had even started.
The collapse of a footbridge leading to the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium that injured 23 labourers during the final few days before the event was, for many, just another in a long line of embarrassments for the Games organising committee.
The scale of the cost overruns for the Games is staggering. Even before the first athletes had set foot on Indian soil, a report by India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) entitled Preparedness for the XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 put the cost of hosting the games, creating the venues and developing city infrastructure at around $2.7bn.
The initial Bid Book Budget set the cost of the games at $422m which, according to planners, would be enough to renovate existing stadiums, build new venues and stage the Games. It is clear, from the following months, that this was a very optimistic figure.
An independent report titled The 2010 Commonwealth Games: Whose Wealth, Whose Commons?, commissioned by India’s Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), claims that spending on sports infrastructure and facilities alone had shot up to $730m – more than 16 times the original total, and almost double that of the entire original budget. The report also stated that the true cost of the Games lay somewhere between the official figure of $2.7bn and independent estimates of $6.5bn. Someone, somewhere managed to get things very wrong indeed.
The first scalps were netted earlier this year when police arrested sacked Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and two others, and charged them with fraud. The charges arose in connection to an allegation of overpaying Swiss firm Swiss Timing Ltd. for timing and scorekeeping equipment. Kalmadi denied the claims, and was remanded in custody to Tihar prison. Things took a turn for the bizarre when news broke that three Tihar prison officials were suspended for allegedly giving Kalmadi “undue liberty”.
The inquiry came after a surprise visit by a trial court judge in early July 2011, who found Kalmadi “sitting with jail superintendent Shri Bhardwaj and enjoying tea/coffee and biscuit/namkeens. In late July, proceedings took another twist when a Delhi court ordered that Kalmadi undergo a brain scan to determine if he was suffering from dementia. Official findings of the scan were suppressed by the court, and everyone privy to the information forbidden from making it public – including Kalmadi himself.
In late October 2011, he asked that prosecutors clarify questions over their investigations into the Commonwealth Games to “clarify if the continuing further probe to unearth a larger conspiracy, to identify the money trail and additional facts, is over or not.”
It is that last bit that seemed to irk the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the most. The agency said it had repeatedly stated in the court that the investigation regarding the accused named in the charge sheet was complete, but that despiter that, applications are being filed by the accused to delay the proceedings.
India needs answers, and Kalmadi needs to start providing them, in order to preserve the legacy of the Games. He has been incarcerated for six months, and the seeming lack of urgency on his behalf to argue his case and get out of prison is not the reasoning one would normally associate with an innocent individual. Whether he’s guilty or not, Kalmadi needs to explain just how the budgets were overstepped by such a high margin.
Carlin Gerbich is a senior reporter for Construction Week.