Pakistan to cement Delhi’s infrastructure for Games

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New Delhi, Jul 4: Archrival Pakistan has turned out to be an unusual ally in Delhi’s preparedness for Commonwealth Games 2010. Acting on Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s request, the neighbouring country has agreed to enhance cement supplies in order to accelerate the pace of construction on infrastructure projects.

The projects were getting delayed due to the sudden increase in cement prices in India.

Now, both the countries are working on ways to enable greater supply of cement from Pakistan by removing procedural constraints at the Wagha border. This step was taken after four major infrastructure projects including stadiums, a media centre and a hostel worth Rs 300 crore, had not found any contractors due to the steep rise in prices of steel, cement and other raw materials.

The Delhi government too, expressed its inability to address their concerns over the unprecedented rise in the prices of cement, sources in the state government told FE.

The projects include a Rs 100-crore wrestling stadium, a Rs 25-crore hostel, a media centre at Indira Gandhi Stadium, a space planning project worth Rs 100 crore at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and a Rs 70-crore project to refurbish Karni Singh Stadium in Tughlakabad. The last day for submitting tenders for these projects was April 24, which has been postponed to last week of June. This was the sixth postponement due to lack of bidders.

Besides, eight projects at Indira Gandhi Stadium, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium are progressing at a slow pace, due to delay in the procurement of key raw materials.

Builders say steel and cement, which together constitute around 60% of the total input cost of any stadium project, have become substantially more expensive. It will be difficult to go ahead with these projects without a suitable compensation mechanism, they say.

An official of the Builders Association of India on condition of anonymity said, “Builders have decided to boycott all future projects related to the Commonwealth Games on the ground that existing cost escalation norms, linked to Wholesale Price Index, are not commensurate with the actual increase in price of raw materials. So we have demanded that the CPWD and the urban development ministry rework the cost escalation norms and link them to the base prices of commodities published every month by the CPWD, which we think are more realistic’’.