Organising Committee forgets railway stations for special Games makeover

The Commonwealth games organisers have quietly excluded Indian Railways — supposed to be their lead sponsor — from their grand plans of adorning the Capital's public places with the special look and image of the Games.

The Commonwealth games organisers have quietly excluded Indian Railways — supposed to be their lead sponsor — from their grand plans of adorning the Capital's public places with the special look and image of the Games.

HT Image

The city's railway stations have not found a place in the Organising Committee's R22 crore plan to cast the Games theme at the airport, the main roads, bus shelters, flyovers, large buildings, buses, medians and many other such places.

This, despite the fact that the railways will be doling out R100 crore in sponsorship to the Games, making them the biggest sponsor and public sector partner of the OC.

Railway officials said they had no idea about the copyrighted design material specially developed by the Image and Look functional area of the OC, which is spending R20 crore to carry out the task.

"We have not got any design materials or any such material from the Games organisers. Nobody from the OC has contacted us with such ideas," said a senior Indian Railway official, on the condition of anonymity.

Keeping the Games in mind, Northern Railway is remodelling the three main stations — New Delhi, Old Delhi and Nizamuddin — to make them more beautiful and spacious. "The remodelling work is also being done on our own," he said.

There is no clear explanation why stations were excluded.

"We do not have railway stations in our plan, probably because no one from the railways contacted us. We have well thought-out plans for the airport though," Sangeeta Welinkar, the head of Image and Look at the OC told HT.

Months ago, the OC designed the exterior of the special Games Express with the unique Games theme before the train went around the country.