With just 16 months to go for the Commonwealth Games, the Delhi government said it expects to all projects including the games village and the various venues by December 2009?almost 10 months before the event.
The most ambitious project, the state-of-the-art games village is being built by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on the east bank of Yamuna river will be handed over to the games organising committee by September 2009.
However, the work on flyovers and bridges may not be completed on due time?10 out of the 24 projects initiated may fail to meet the deadline. This was admitted by the chief secretary of the Delhi government, Rakesh Mehta during a presentation last week to a delegation from Melbourne led by lord mayor John So.
??By December 2009, all the venues of the games will be handed over to the Organising Committee. It will enable them to carry out the trial runs much in advance. Given the pace of work, there will not be any need to advance the deadline,?? Mehta told FE.
The games village being developed at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore will be spread over an area of 63.5 hectares.
Many works are scheduled to be completed by December 2009 including the upgradation and renovation of major venues such as Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium, the Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium and Major Dhyan Chand national stadium, the work on 10 proposed flyovers and bridges is at different stages of completion, he added.
Since various agencies are engaged in preparing the city for the event, the government has set up different committees at various levels to assess the progress of all projects. There is a core group of ministers jointly headed by home minister, Shivraj Patil and human resource development minister, Arjun Singh to ensure proper planning and timely completion of the games related projects.
Besides the DDA and the city government, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has been entrusted with the task of renovating and repairing all the big stadiums.
?The work progress is satisfactory, we hope to meet the deadline of December 2009 to complete all the works and hand over the stadiums to OC. It can take a couple of months more for the Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium and Indira Ghandhi indoor stadium?? a senior CPWD official said.
The government has earmarked Rs 1,100 crore towards the renovation and upgradation of JL Nehru stadium where the events scheduled to be held include athletics, lawn bowls and weightlifting, gymnastics, cycling, archery and hockey.
Another Rs 350 crore is slated to be spent on upgrading the multi-purpose Thyagaraj sports complex and the Talkatora stadium. Over Rs 200 crore will go towards revamping facilities at the Yamuna sports complex where a new air-condition stadiums to accommodated 5,000 people is being built.