Commonwealth Games-Will the medals worth?

Organizing a mega sports event, is a chance for the host nations to showcase its tradition and culture and express their hospitality to the world. Moreover such events contribute to the development of sports in that country. But when it comes to India’s case it becomes just another chance for corruption, wastage and dirty politics. The 2010 Commonwealth Games is to be held in Delhi this October. With one month left to start the games Delhi is struggling to finish the works of the stadia and other infrastructure. Last month reports of wide scam in the works came out. Large amount of public money has been wasted by misuse and the expense shot up because of lack of proper management. Thousands of crores has been spent over various projects so far. Some venues which completed work, is reported for lack in quality. The main venue, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was renovated at a cost of Rs.961 crore (It is to be noted that, the Gachibowli stadium was newly constructed for almost 21 crores, for the Afro-Asian games in 2003). Like this for almost every project, huge amount more than needed was spent, and is still struggling to finish before timeline and is lacking quality. The Organizers are also widely criticized for the eviction of thousands of poor people for making space.

Development of the country’s sports structure is the main task of mega events. And how far India is prepared to utilize the games in that way? CWG is participated by member countries of British Commonwealth. Here only some events are having world class quality in competition. The main attraction of a multi game event is athletics. At CWG it is having good quality. But India is very poor in athletics according to CWG level. India doesn’t have a world class athlete to show up as a torchbearer. When China hosted Olympic Games, they had world champion Liu Xiang, to showcase. India’s performance in previous CWG events was mainly in shooting and weight lifting. Both items are less competitive in this event compared to Asian Games and Olympics.Delhi games also miss star athletes like Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, etc. The unfinished stadia, games village and other infrastructures, wide corruption, blame game and the withdrawal of star athletes has put the game under shadow, before it starts. And if it fails to provide any development to the country’s sports structure, then the tax payers money is entirely wasted for a mock. In 2003, crores were spent for Afro-Asian games and it was an utter failure, both in competition and success. South Africa, Qatar, Japan, Korea, China all gained from the events they hosted. They were able to improve their sports structure and were able to carry over it to more big events.

This large sum of money, if efficiently utilized for the development of sports in the country will gain good results in the future. If there is a well planned program with this resources, India will surely become the giants in world sports. We are having talented youth. All they need is good support and good infrastructure. We just need efficient utilization of resources. For that, sports administrators should be sports lovers, rather than money loving politicians. Otherwise these events produce nothing and will be another burden over the poor tax payer.