Ministers ask Organising Committee to come up with alternatives

Rains may deflate CWG balloon plan

Ministers ask Organising Committee to come up with alternatives

JUST HOT AIR? Aerostat, the balloon (above) is an integral part of the
show for the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games at
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main venue for CWG.u00a0 PIC/Imtiyaz Khan

Sources said, the matter came up in a recent meeting, which was attended by GoM chief, S Jaipal Reddy and Cabinet Secretary, K M Chandrashekhar among others. OC officials, reportedly, did not have an alternate plan. Dissatisfied, the GoM asked the OC officials to come up with a solution at the earliest.u00a0 Quite early this year, Met department had predicted that there could be rains during the Commonwealth Games.

"So far the balloon trials have gone well. But there could be technical problems (with the aerostat) as well," said an OC official.

OC Secretary General, Lalit Bhanot, when contacted, said he was not aware of the issue.
However, sources in the OC said the matter had not been deliberated upon earlier. The balloon is worth Rs 40 crore and is 80 metre by 40 metre in size and is 12 metre high.

The aerostat will be multi-purpose, with video content being projected on it, including animation and graphics and will also be synchronised with the events that will be taking place during the opening ceremony. The projection will be of high-resolution and some of the live events during the Games will also be projected on the aerostat. The aerostat will lift scenic elements and create dramatic effects.

Rainfall had occurred during the opening ceremony of Asian Games at Doha in 2006, Seoul Olympics in 1988 and even in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

TRIALS IN ERROR
The Opening ceremony trials which were scheduled to commence on 1 September would now start on September 25.
Officials in OC said that as the construction work has got delayed, the ceremony trials were postponed. However, the casualty of the less trials could be performances by artists. " Respective divisions are conducting their practices as per their schedule in given spaces. Lets hope less trial period does not have any negative period on overall performances," said a top official who wished not to be named.

KITCHEN KING
The Games Village kitchen has become operational with the first cooked meals served during breakfast on Monday. Randhir Singh, Vice Chairman, Organising Committee and Venue Administrator, Ashok Vasudevan and other key team members joined the workforce for lunch at the Games Village. The state-of-the-art Village kitchen has been installed and started functioning in the Residential Zone in the Village. The caterer, Delaware North, has already tested the equipment and is all set to serve over 7000 athletes and team officials from 71 nations and territories. The soft opening of the Games Village will happen on September 16, while the formal opening is scheduled to be held on September 23 when the contingents start arriving in Delhi.

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