'DDA responsible for Games village mess'

CAG report blames the civil planner for causing delays, giving undue favours to promoters

All is well that ends well. The epithet does not seem to work with the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Ever since the Delhi games got over, skeletons have been tumbling out of closets of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible for the mess in the run up to the mega-sporting events.


Tall order: The CAG report has blamed the DDA for alleged corruption in
Games Village. file pic

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), one of the authorities involved in the multi-agency probe in the CWG scam, has severely indicted Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for causing inordinate delays in the construction and management of the Commonwealth Games village in east Delhi.

Probe expanded
The government auditor had gone into the alleged corruption in the construction of the Games village at Rs 1,600 crore and submitted a report in May. It pointed out that DDA had given the builder - Emaar MGF a bailout package of Rs 760 crore. Later, the scope of its probe was expanded to investigate as to who was responsible for the hygiene and unpreparedness of flats weeks before the Games, causing a major embarrassment.

No clearances
MiD DAY accessed excerpts of the CAG report which is due to come out this month. The report mentions how DDA made a mess of the Commonwealth Games village and then paid to cover up the goof-ups committed by Emaar MGF.

"The DDA did not decide the availability of a clear site for construction, approval of building from local bodies and availability of structural drawings before the works were awarded for the Games village," it says.
These delays caused major problems like the land where entry and exit points for VIP and Press and workforce were to made belonged to Uttar Pradesh and not handed over to DDA till "proper date", which caused hindrances in execution. Apart from this the works at Games village were awarded without approval of building plan by the local body due to paucity of time.

Indecisiveness
The report says that the DDA took more than three years to decide that International Zone, Operational Zone, Transport Mall and dining hall facilities should be taken on rent.

The CAG found in the scrutiny that the agreement between DDA and Emaar MGF had a clause that 10 per cent of tendered value will be kept on missing each deadline. But the CAG found that no such deduction was made. The DDA instead extended the deadlines by 85 days.

The report also mentioned how DDA awarded the works of training venues on "abnormally higher rates and violated the CPWD works manual" which caused delay and extra expenditure of Rs 1.13 crore.

The GoM had directed the agency for the construction of residential flats for the athletes in November 2006. But the DDA took 10 months to decide to the name of the developer and then finalised the list and prepared the request for proposal (RFP).