Indian Sports Minister Manohar Singh Gill happy with Commonwealth Games stadiums
While the Indian media simmers over the state of construction of the infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games, the government remains defiant, claiming that the facilities are the state of the art and were set to take Indian sports to newer heights.
The latest person to join the debate is Sports Minister Manohar Singh Gill who lauded the efforts put in by the organizers of the event, claiming that the stadiums constructed in the last few months are well-equipped and ready to welcome some of the best athletes in various categories.
Laying into the media, Gill added that most of the allegations levelled against him and the team of organizers were unsubstantiated.
The defiant Minister added that the organizers had put in a cent percent effort and ought to be lauded rather than unduly criticized.
Gill threw a challenge at the media men asking them to go and have a look at the facilities in place. He added that they were welcome to take high profile engineers along with them and assess the construction to the core.
Gill was confident that the preparations for the Games were second to none and those modern designing techniques were kept in mind in laying out the architecture.
"Almost all (stadiums) are, for the first time, of a high level of architecture and therefore requiring engineering in this country. Let nobody mistake that. Let everybody go and check that” said Gill.
Gill also promised that if any fault was pointed out, then due action would be taken by the concerned authorities and he would go all out to support the constructors.
He revealed that his Ministry had given instructions to the contractors and the engineers to leave no stone unturned in ensuring top class work.
"There is even statements made of some not quality work in tiling or anything. It has to be all checked. That is our clear direction from the Sports Ministry and they will all be checking and we have praised the contractors enough. We have praised the engineers enough, but now I have to say this to them that these two months, every day, every week, there will be checking.” said Gill.
Meanwhile, similar sentiments were echoed by Federal Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy who reassured that whatever Gill has claimed is the truth. Jaipal added that the government was backing him in his endeavours to ensure that the best possible facilities are handed over to the athletes when they enter the gruelling competition.
"We have a system, we have central vigilance commissioners. We have CBIs, we have internal audit, we have CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) we have Parliament Committees. All of them will naturally spring into action" said Reddy.
Reddy added that the Games would be a rip-roaring success, and the event would go a long way in identifying India as a successful sporting nation around the world.
Reddy backed the efforts of the organizers by adding that the media had wrongly depicted the preparations of the CWG as nine out of the thirteen stadiums for the event were ready to use.
The organizers are extremely confident that they have done the ground work for a successful event, yet the media was accusing them of being cocky even before the start of the sporting extravaganza.
The Commonwealth Games 2010 will be held from 3 to 14 October in Indian capital, New Delhi.
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