South Africa, with all its prior doubts and critics, has written history by hosting a successful world class game. Long period of one month has raised doubts in the minds of all the people whether an African country, into the clutches of Poverty, history of racial wars and AIDS, would be able to host a mammoth game like Football World Cup. But the way they prepared has a great lessons for India which is going to host another major sports event Common Wealth(CW) Games. They started preparing for the event in late 2006 and Stadiums were made ready by 2009. After that only regular daily care was left to done. Hosting such a grand sport event offered advantage in three ways. Firstly it showed the ability of South Africa to host a world class event that puts it at world stature. Secondly it has recognized its hidden potential in a global game like Football. High skilled shown by South Africa team and fantastic display of Ghana till the quarter final was exemplary. This will definitely change the way football was seen in Africa by a common man prior to the World Cup. Thirdly it has proved economically beneficial. Total expenditure in the preparation of the game was approx $ 4 bn ( 20,000 cr), while the revenue generated was approx $ 5 bn (25,000 cr). A clear cut profit of $ 1 bn which is nonetheless huge.
Sensation of successful hosting of World Cup by South Africa has churned Indians as well but in a different way. It has started flurry of questions, doubts and skepticism mixed with pessimism over our preparation of CW Game which is regarded as the 4th gigantic sports event. All these doubts are not mere allegations by the opposition but are concrete. Intelligentsia are seeing some serious flaws in the policies designed for the preparation of games. Initially the money proposed was Rs 1800 cr in 2004. But actually expenditure came out to be mindboggling 80,000 cr, means more than 45 times, by 2010. How could such a huge discrepancy in the approximation of expenditure be possible? It is beyond in the understanding of a common man. If a common man decides to make his own house and money estimation comes out to be 5 lakh, he knows the cost could well rise to around 8-10 lakh or at the most 15 lakh, but it could never be the case when it comes out to be 1 cr or more. How could you spend Rs 80,000 cr, when you are proposing a budget of mere 1800 cr! This shows some serious irregularities and utmost sense (rather non-sense) of non-accountability. Valuable money of the tax-payers is being wasted unabashedly. CW game is a bright opportunity to party for the most corrupt policy makers and the beaurocrats.
In the month of Jan'10, state government of Delhi openly accepted that it did not have 800 cr for the metro project and has asked help from DDA to bear out the expenditure. One of the allegation is that Rs 100 cr was spent in just planning of the expenditure sitting in the AC room which is ridiculous and preposterous. State government of Delhi did not have money to implement Right to Education in its schools also and asked help from the centre. Government did not have 6000 cr for the National I-card scheme, crucial for the security of the nation, and the budget proposed was reduced to 3000 cr. It again shows that the priority is not towards the people, their education, upliftment and security, but towards games. Delhi government claims to have fully prepared infrastructure till Aug'10 which should have been ready 1 year prior to the games. From the RTI it also came out that only Rs 700 cr has been spent directly for the players and their facilities, less than 1% of total budget. Government try to hide its face from the mask of success of Metro and fly overs. But Metro rail and fly overs have only little to do with the preparation of games. Our stadiums are not ready even now. What home-advantage they are going to offer to our own player when they cannot practice there? Metro Rail and most of the flyovers were under the proposed future development of the delhi as early as 1996. And it is mere a co-incidence that CWG came at the same time, giving the government a chance to justify its poor policies and extravagance and hide face.
Pride of hosting the grand event does not lie only in building the infrastructure, but also in the rank in the Medal Tally of the host country. China, which hosted one of the Best Olympics ever in 2008, was on the top of medal tally. Can our players be manage to do the same in CWG? If you are spending only 1% of the total budget on your players, what kind of priority you are showing in the preparation of the game, is it to appease the guests with facilities only or the medal tally you get? Had such a huge money was spent on the players only, or just one fourth of it, we could have come on the top of medal tally in Olympics as well. But Alas! this is not at all the case. Our players are preparing in the same conditions as ever. Even the most basic facilities of Play grounds, nutrition and Coaching is lacking in every town of India. Then where the calibre will be generated. Good players are not imported, rather they are generated with basic facilities, guidance and motivation. Focus has forcibly made shifted towards Metros, flyovers, footpaths, which has nothing to do with hosting a successful game.
So let us hope, mere hope, together of a successful world class games with India arises as a major sports destination with top rank tally. Let us keep our policy makers befool us and spend the precious sweat and blood money of the common man unabashedly. Let us allow to make this CWG a perfect blend of Extravagance, poor accountability,lack of vision and mismanaged resources. And let us show the world that we can neither host a game successfully nor do any good for our own players, forget the rest of the common men and his ever increasing problems.
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