Operation Clean-up is still on at Games Village

  New Delhi: The Operation Clean-up is still on at the Commonwealth Games Village. The administration is fighting waterlogging, malfunctioning lifts, plumbing and electrical repairs. 

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is shying away from another deadline and the next 48 hours could be make or break.

The Games Village was meant to be the residence of champions and over 3,000 athletes were supposed to be living here. Instead, this supposed luxurious complex has turned out to be the source of biggest embarrassment to the organisers.

Poisonous reptiles and dirty bathrooms are not the ideal advertisement for these flats. So who really is to be blamed?

Mike Hooper said venues were not handed over in time, while Suresh Kalmadi said: "If we were given this in time, this wouldn’t have happened." CM Diskhit said: "I can’t give you any deadline, else you will hold me to that. Wish Emar MGF had given these flats to me earlier."

Everyone is now gunning for the private firm EMAR MGF, which was responsible for building these flats, for this delay. Just last year, EMAR MGF asked DDA to bail the company out as it was facing funds shortage.

Now, though, the company has taken DDA to court for serving a notice of demolishing some apartments that it had allegedly built illegally.

The Games Village was meant to be the showpiece of CWG 2010 in New Delhi. The challenge before the authorities now is to get in fully ready. The Organising Committee (OC) feels it will manage to achieve its target. Past lessons though tell a different story.

Till Sunday, the OC wasn’t sure whether all the 34 towers would be ready. Now, CNN IBN learns that around 40 flats may not be ready at all.

But the organisers say that’s no cause for alarm. Out of all the teams only the South African contingent is being put up in a hotel on Monday night. They too will be shifted to the Village on Tuesday. From Tuesday afternoon, all countries’ delegations will be put up at the Village site.

What happens within the next 48 hours will be crucial in determining just how the world will look at CWG 2010.