This article in the NYT seems quite pessimistic:
Hopes Fade for Success of Commonwealth Games in India
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/asia/22india.html?_r=1
By HEATHER TIMMONS
Published: September 21, 2010
NEW DELHI Skepticism about Indias preparedness for the Commonwealth Games deepened Tuesday after a partly constructed footbridge collapsed outside the main arena for competition, injuring dozens.
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Sokol for The New York Times
Security guards at the stadium on Tuesday. The police said that 27 people were injured, 4 seriously. Athletes are scheduled to start arriving Thursday.
The collapse coincided with angry words from visiting officials who described the accommodations for athletes as uninhabitable. One visitor, the head of the New Zealand delegation, even raised the possibility that the games might be delayed or canceled.
Indias failure to complete the work for the games, which are to begin Oct. 3 and last for two weeks, has become a major embarrassment for the country instead of a showcase for its rising economic might. The unspoken comparison to Indias rival China, which won widespread acclaim from its preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics, are a further source of humiliation.
Representatives of the dozens of countries participating in the Commonwealth Games, a quadrennial competition among the nations of the former British Empire, started arriving here in recent days to inspect facilities and conduct security checks. The athletes village, built for the games, is not ready, they say, and questions linger about security after an attack on tourists in Delhi on Sunday.
On Tuesday afternoon, a bridge next to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main venue, fell apart. The footbridge collapsed into three pieces, taking several workers with it and uprooting one side of the arch that supported it.
A police officer at the scene said that 27 people had been injured, 4 seriously.
This will not affect the games, said Raj Kumar Chauhan, a Delhi minister for development, who spoke at the scene. We can put the bridge up again, or make a new one.
The accident occurred when workers were trying to pour concrete into a clip at the base of the bridge, he said, and the clip was loosened.
Games officials had lodged formal complaints about the preparations with Indias government even before the accident. The condition of the residential zone has shocked the majority, the Commonwealth Games Federation president, Michael Fennel, said in a statement Monday evening. Mr. Fennel said he had sent a letter to Indias union cabinet secretary. The athletes village is seriously compromised, he said.
The problems are arising because deadlines for the completion of the village have been consistently pushed out, Mr. Fennell said.
The village is uninhabitable, the Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive, Mike Hooper, told the local television channel CNN-IBN on Tuesday. There is dust everywhere, he said. The flats are dirty and ******. Toilets are unclean.
Construction of the village, built alongside the Yamuna River on Delhis eastern border, is severely behind schedule. Delhi built a series of apartment towers to house about 7,000 athletes and their families, a 2,300-seat cafeteria, and practice areas on land that was originally an empty plain.
Officials from the Ministry of Sports promised last year that the village would be ready in March 2010, but finishing touches were still being done outside buildings during a media tour last week. And the interiors of the buildings are still not completed, some say.
Dave Currie, the head of New Zealands Commonwealth Games team, said Tuesday in an interview with Newstalk ZB, a New Zealand radio station, that the condition of the athletes village was pretty grim.
Showers and toilets in the accommodations the New Zealand team was given are not working, and post-construction cleanup has not been done, he said. It is certainly disappointing considering the amount of time they have had, he said.
Athletes are scheduled to start arriving in Delhi on Thursday, but that date may need to be pushed back, Mr. Currie said, which could ultimately result in the competition being canceled. If the village is not ready, the athletes cannot arrive, he said.
There is a real mountain to climb before the village can be completed, Mr. Currie said. It will be a real challenge at this point to make it happen, he said.
Security at the games has also become a major concern after two tourists were shot outside the Jama Masjid, a mosque that is one of Delhis major attractions, on Sunday. Neither tourist was fatally injured, and the mosque is far from the venues or the athletes village, but the attack prompted new fears about Delhis ability to keep athletes and visitors safe during the games.
An e-mail sent to news outlets soon after the attack said the Indian Mujahedeen, a group the Indian government considers a terrorist organization, would single out the games.
Had it not happened against the almost complete disarray of the Commonwealth Games preparations, it would not have raised much excitement, said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a group that studies terrorist activity. Athletes are worried that if construction and planning are in disarray, security may be too, he said.
Most venues were supposed to be completed in 2007, but workers were still putting finishing touches on many of them as well.
A version of this article appeared in print on September 22, 2010, on
