CWG profligacy exposed

CAG report unearths fresh scam; Kalmadis Asiad bid to be blocked

These and other details are seeing the light of the day with increasing regularity as corruption’s can of worms continued to open up on Monday with Games Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who is suspected to be smack in the middle of the quagmire, adopting a defensive posture.

Monday also saw speculation over the Sports Ministry all but deciding not to approve the bid of the IOC to host the Asian Games scheduled for 2019. Already under a cloud for alleged corruption and delays, the IOC received a setback as the Centre is understood to have rejected its proposal to host the Asian Games in 2019.

According to informed sources, the government would block Kalmadi’s bid for hosting the Asiad on two counts: the charges of corruption and two, it is unwilling to spend taxpayers’ money on another international sports event. The government is said to have not taken kindly to Kalmadi not keeping it informed of the bid. According to reports, he informed the Sports Ministry only after the expiry of the bidding deadline of June 30.

Union Sports Minister M S Gill, a strong critic of Kalmadi, is said to be annoyed over the IOC not informing the ministry on the Asiad bid. He is said to have kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh posted of the developments. With the Union Cabinet’s approved required for the proposal, and several senior ministers upset over the CWG corruption and delay charges, it is unlikely that the Cabinet will give a green signal for the bid, if at all the proposal reaches it.

There is more to the profligacy than hiring a treadmill at an exhorbitant rate. The Organising Committee hired cross trainers at Rs 8.8 lakh a piece, chairs at Rs 8,378 each and 100-litre refrigerators at Rs 42,202 each. Even umbrellas were hired for Rs 6,308 per piece. It is believed that the Organising Committee, flush with a budget of over Rs 10,000 crore to spend on the Commonwealth Games, took on rent 59 treadmills, as many cross trainers and 110 two-tonne air conditioners among other items. These overlays total about Rs 650 crore and items were hired from four contractors.

These shocking details are contained in a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which the Sports Ministry sat on for a year before the Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) attention was drawn to it. The reports of extravagance which, needless to say, has been at cost of the taxpayer, surfaced on a day when pressure built up on Kalmadi, who is also the Indian Olympic Association president, forcing him to convene an emergency meeting of the Executive Board on August 5.

A beleaguered Kalmadi announced the meeting after IOA Secretary General Randhir Singh and vice-president and BJP leader V K Malhotra separately demanded such a deliberation. The board’s emergency meeting will focus on allegations of corruption and delay in completion of stadia for the CWG.

In a letter to Kalmadi, Singh, who is also the OC vice-president, said that the meeting should be called immediately considering the gravity of the allegations. “In pursuance to media reports published in a leading daily about financial irregularities alleged in the Queen’s Baton Relay at the Buckingham Palace. Since the situation is grave, the discussion should be held immediately,” Singh said in his letter.