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RETROFIT

Two interesting news items on the wires in the last couple of days -Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit says that she is nervous about theCommonwealth Games deadlines while in Gwalior, sports minister M S Gilldenies any rift in the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. Then onTuesday morning Mail Today reports that a parliamentary standingcommittee has expressed serious doubts about the completion of variousprojects on time. The ministry of urban development standingcommittee in its report says, "we are aware of slippages in certainproject miletsones, a fact supported by even the Comptroller andAuditor general."
The recent Commonwealth Games Federation Coordination Commission wasalso wary of the time overruns on some of the stadia though itcommended the increased pace of work since the General Assembly inOctober. What is the role of media in all this? Is it merely reportingon events as they happen or is it more focused on unearthing the realstory behind the all pervasive apathy and slowdown? Has Gamesorganising committee boss Suresh Kalmadi known for his sharpnetworking skills bought the silence of big media? Is mediahighlighting the nature of abuse in financialoversight adequately? Is it doing enough investigations on the slowpace of work? Nobody has a clue about the kind of money that is beingploughed into the CWG black hole. National prestige is being used as acover to pour money down the drain. Bottomline is that the results arestill not visible despite all this talk about presenting the best everGames. Do I sound like a Cassandra of Doom? Perhaps yes. But have youdriven down Delhi roads lately. They are an unmitigated disasterreplete with moon craters. The whole place resembles a gigantic bomb shelterwhile time runs out. Hardly nine months remain. And nobody in media isreally calling Kalmadi & Co's bluff. Media is not bothered about realissues, Hindi newswallahs are going bananas over 'pralay' which comesas part of global warming. News media doesn't care about rising pricesand its impact on household budgets and palates. The English press ismore concerned over Advani and the BJP. For God's sake he is on thewrong side of 80 and is not going to be a player in 2014. If hechooses to hang on to a dream, media doesn't necessarily have tomirror that image. Or maybe the spin doctors are still running riotfeeding a senseless and gullible media.
Take two important developing stories - Commonwealth Games and pricespiral - and their treatment for instance. We have events beingreported on, but real investigation into why there is a can of wormsopen inside the Games headquarters is being ignored. Media's role isto be vigilant and throw into stark relief acts of omission andcommission. Strangely even the news telly wallahs have not beendigging for dirt in the Commonwealth cesspool. This silence isdeafening. Various players along the food chain - sports minister M SGill, Kalmadi, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and even the PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh have allayed the fears of the Commonwealthfrat by assauging their hurt at the delay and paper over the matter byconvincing one and all that all is well. The new clarioncall remains that the Games will be the best ever. The latest anthemfrom 3 Idiots - All is Well - is the new underlying credo for theorganisers. The Coorodination Commission which has just completed itsvisit has realised that there is now a time overrun on some of thestadia including Jawahar Lal Nehru where the opening and closingceremonies are to take place.
At the recently concluded Sports Breakfast on the sidelines of theCommonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Port of Spain, Kalmadi saidthat the Games will cost an astronomical $2 billion. A few days later,minister of state for sports P P Patil says that the Games will costthe exchequer Rs10,550 crore. That is well over $2 billion. The numbers just keepinflating as far as the government spend on next year's CommonwealthGames in the capital are concerned. The total estimated expenditurelikely to be incurred for hosting the mega event now stands at awhopping $ 2.28 billion. This information was provided by PratikPrakashbapu Patil in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha(Upper house of Parliament) last week. Patil had some positive news togive though, stating that the CWGOC has estimated that it wouldgenerate revenue of around Rs 1708 crore from international/domesticbroadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing, licensed merchandise, donationsetc. The shortfall, not much, just a wee bit - only Rs 8842 crore.
Sports Authority of India and CPWD will be spending Rs 962 crore onthe Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, as much as Rs 669 crore on IndiraGandhi stadium, while DDA will spend Rs 827.85 crore on the GamesVillage and competition and training venues.These are obscene sums ofmoney. If the Prime Minister's Office has intervened and appointed keybureaucrats in the organising committee management team, it isprimarily to keep an eye on the financial profilgacy. Let usunderstand that at this late stage with just nine months to go for theunveiling of the Games, the Government is left with no alternative. Ithas to go ahead and provide the necessary infrastructure. There is asense of fait accompli. So India has to deliver and if there are costand time overruns, so be it. Now let me rewind to 1982 when Indiahosted the Asian Games. The event infrastructure cost Rs 55 crore.Yes, you read it right - Rs 55 crore. Now even if this figure were tobe adjusted for inflation 27 years later, the new figure should be inthe vicinity of Rs 550 crore, not Rs 10,550 crore as the governmenthas claimed in Parliament. Taking all manner of cost escalations intoconsideration, the Rs 550 crore can be doubled to Rs 1100 crore. Butthe JLN stadium alone is seeing a total expenditure of Rs 962 crore.Something is amiss here. Yes, steel, cement and construction costshave spiralled over the last two and half decades, but the yawningchasm between Rs 55 crore and Rs 10,550 crore is unthinkable. If oneadds all the allied city developmental cost which includes the metro,new airport, flyovers, underpasses, beautification andwhatchamacallit, then this Rs 10,550 crore balloons to Rs 62,000crore. Party poopers will stand up and ask a simple question; can Indiaafford these Games? Financial elasticity of a kind not seen in recentmemory is propelling these Games forward.
Higher minimum support prices and the resultant crop switching fromfood to commercial crops is playing havoc with the farming sectorNetsown area has remained more or less static since 1970 when it was 141million hectares. So, with acreage not increasing, yields flounderingdespite a 15 per cent spike in the use of fertilsers, the farm outputis shrinking even as the mouths to feed has shot up considerably.Population as per the census has grown from 54 crore in 1970 to 102crore currently. Significantly, agriculture as a percentage of GDP hasslid from 41 per cent to 17 per cent during the same period. Theminimum support price for rice was Rs 570 per quintal in 2006, it isRs 850 now, while wheat MSP has risen in the same period from Rs 650per quintal to Rs 1100 now. Uttar Pradesh cane farmers find it farmore remunerative to grow wheat and rice, rather than sugar cane whichfetches them a pittance in comparison. This has led to distortions inthe system, leading to the recent cane farmer agitation because thecentral governement mandated through an ordinance that a Fair andRemunerative Price would be fixed. The state government would pay thedifference to the farmers over and above that and not the mill ownerswho used to do so earlier. This caused ferment and brought Delhi to astandstill.
The issue of rising prices has vexed all households in the land. Anegg costs Rs 4, potato, onion, sugar and dal prices have shot into thestratosphere. The food inflation genie is out of the bottle at aridiculous 20 per cent and there is no sign of respite in sight. It isthe same story on the price spike front as well. Barring a few storieson rising prices, there is no campaign on the kind of dismay that isengulfing India's middle class as it collapses under the sheer weightof searing prices.
India won the right to host the Commonwealth Games as far back asNovember, 2003 by beating back Canadian city Hamilton's challenge inMontego Bay. The clincher came when India offered each of the 72nations $100,000 as a 'bribe' underthe guise of an athlete development grant. This swung the vote 46-22in favour of India. This is what former sports minister Mani ShankarAiyar told this writer recently, "The BJP sports minister at the timeVikram Verma was in Montego Bay along with IOA president Suresh Kalmadipitching for the Games. When things got tight and it appeared thatIndia would end up on the losing side, Kalmadi got permission fromVerma to call up then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee to make the offer ofoffering an 'athlete development grant' to each one of the CGF nationsto swing the vote. But are you sure, it was $ 100,000 per nation? Mysense it was a million dollars per country that was offered. Once thebid was won, the organising committee - again the IOA in a differentgarb - sought the government's permission for a small sum of money, asexpenses to organise the Games in Delhi. This was a temporaryfinancial loan which was to be returned to the government. Whatstarted out as an initial temporary financial proposal turned into anunlimited financial commitment."
In a nation where food prices have just about everyone teetering onthe ropes, to first 'bribe' foreign delegations and then get anunlimited financial commitment from the Union Government to host theGames is a criminal waste of time, money and effort. Fiscal deficit bedamned, the nation's prestige is at stake after all. Therein lies therub. For six years since 2003, we have been sitting on our fat backsideswaiting for closure of the Games infrastructure. CAG was the first toblow the lid on this gargantuan exercise, Fennell added fuel to thefire, Kalmadi's conduct stoked it further. With no financialoversight body, the Games budget has seen repeated cost escalations.Goalposts continuously shift, the December 31, 2009 deadline has beenshifted to March 31, 2010. And in some cases June 2010 now. Meanwhile,nobody has a handle on the chaos that prevails. Both on theCommonwealth Games and prices fronts. All we have is promises.
And media needs to target the real meaty issues in its crosshairs.Issues that affect you and me. Or is it that these issues aren't sexyenough? And Advani is.