TSR approved by Exec Board headed by Kalmadi not me: OC CEO

He cited "serious time constraint" as the main reason behind delay, cost escalation and irregularities in executing various Games related contracts.

"I did not do any wrong. I have not approved the TSR. It was decided long back," Singh told PTI.

He denied media reports accusing him of writing a letter citing approval on the deal, which has put some top OC brass behind the bars saying that "it was taken out of context."

"I have written a letter to the Sports Ministry about a complaint over the deal. It was taken out of context. I never said that I approved it.

"As per the charter of work given to me by the OC Chairman, I was responsible to liaise with various agencies of the Government of India and Government of National Capital Region and deal with all matters pertaining to Cabinet/Group of Ministers," Singh said.
He said it is the Executive Board under the chairmanship of Kalmadi which had the power to approve any project or deal worth over Rs six crore.

According to the letter, which began the controversy, the selection of Swiss Timing for executing TSR contract was a result of "tight scrutiny" by two committees of senior government officials including Urban Development and Sports secretaries.

In his letter on February 15 last year, the CEO had brought in notice that different Committees have approved the Swiss Timing, ignoring Spanish firm MSL Software, which had quoted much lesser amount.

Singh quoted Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) President Mike Fennell and Chief Executive Mike Hooper for granting approval to the firm.

The letter was in response to a complaint over alleged irregularities in the deal forwarded by the Central Vigilance Commission.

CBI officials have arrested Kalmadi, sacked OC Secretary General Lalit Bhanot, Director General V K Verma, Deputy Director General (Procurement) Surjeet Lal and Joint Director General (Sports) A S V Prasad for their alleged involvement in the deal that caused a loss of Rs 95 crore to the exchequer.

"There were a total of 540 contracts needed to be done by December 2009 according to CGF master's schedule. However, only 37 were executed by then and rest were done in a hurry and in a less time," he said.

The delay in execution of contracts has led to 'corruption' in several works allegedly by certain OC officials, in the run up to mega sporting event held here between October 3-14 here last year.

Citing delay of about three years in processing the TSR deal, he said, "The deal was finally signed on March 2010 and if you didn't sign it then and re-tendered it, the Games would have been held in 2011."