Games body evades answering beef query

The Commonwealth Games' Organising Committee response to a simple query has left everybody stumped. Nivedita Khandekar reports.

The Commonwealth Games' Organising Committee response to a simple query has left everybody stumped.

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The query, "Will beef be allowed to be served/used in any form during forthcoming Commonwealth Games 2010? Please reply specifically in 'Yes' or 'No' as desired under section 7(9) of RTI Act", was made to the OC under Right to Information (RTI) by activist Subhash Agarwal.

The reply was "The OC Commonwealth Games has decided to provide the nutritious meals to the participants during the Games time as per the following guidelines of the CGF (Commonwealth Games Federation): "Commonwealth Games Federation's requirement form the Organizing Committee is to provide to a quality 24 hours catering service offering nutritious meals and snacks to the athletes and their team officials during the Commonwealth Games 2010 taking into consideration Cultural Dietary requirements and the need for variety and rotation of Menus. The Organising Committee is duty bound to carry this out".

Lalit Bhanot, OC's secretary-general, said, "The micro-details of the menu were not ready then (when the RTI reply was sought). That is probably why the answer was not given as specific 'yes' or 'no'."

But are the details ready yet and what is the decision now? "Yes, the details are ready and we are not serving beef," Bhanot told HT.

This is not the first time that OC has given a confusing reply. A few months ago, Arya Samaj members had got a similar answer to a similar query.

"After reading the news about answer 'no' to Agrawal's earlier query (regarding serving of beef at the Games) in January, we approached him and discussed the issue," said Dharam Pal Arya, executive member of Delhi Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, the federal body of Arya Samaj of Delhi.

Agarwal then filed another RTI application for the same.