New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed his satisfaction over the preparation for Commonwealth Games but CNN-IBN has found that Delhi's civic authorities are guilty of overhead charges, inflating prices and clearing substandard material.
Just over two months are left for the Games to begin and more skeleton are now tumbling out of the Commonwealth Games closet. A damning report by the Central Vigilance Commission says there has been rampant corruption in several games related projects.
The CVC reports says all projects undertaken by the MCD have 25 per cent extra overhead charges, which means the contractor has taken 25 per cent more profit that he should have. Even though work was not on schedule, fake reports were furnished. Now the unfinished projects will cost much more than estimated. These projects include construction and renovation of roads, walls and footpaths.
At the Shivaji Stadium work is not even 50 per cent complete.
PWD went a step further, even before the tenders were passed, higher authorities were misled and given inflated prices for project work. A sum of Rs 25.84 crore was added for labourers doing night shifts which was never done.
It is not just the money that has been wasted. Quality of projects too has been compromised. RITES which is responsible for one of the venues bought concrete slabs of lower quality than what was prescribed. Even the concrete mixture used was below standard.
According to the report prices for all Games related work were increased citing urgent circumstances. But despite that the quality ha been compromised and still it is far from over.
Be it giving undue favours to certain agencies or fabricating reports to hide shoddy work, the Commonwealth Games has it all. It's shameful that the NDMC kept giving a clean chit to construction materials even after lab tests failed. Now the CVC has decided to take all these agencies to task. Yet not one is willing to own up.
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