PM to visit Games venues today

Against the backdrop of construction delays and missed deadlines, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit a few Commonwealth Games venues in New Delhi on Sunday for an on the spot inspection of the facilities.

Against the backdrop of construction delays and missed deadlines, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit a few Commonwealth Games venues in New Delhi on Sunday for an on the spot inspection of the facilities.

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The Prime Minister's inspection visit comes as part of the series of steps he had taken to streamline and expedite the preparations for the October 3-14 mega event which had been rocked by a spate of corruption allegations.

Sources said that the PM will visit a few venues in the morning and interact with the Organising Committee officials there.

Concerned by the delays and the corruption allegations, the Prime Minister had convened a high-level meeting on August 14 to review the preparations for the Games.

He had formed a committee of bureaucrats headed by Cabinet Secretary and given it overriding powers by bringing into its ambit the Games Organising Committee that has been tainted by corruption charges.

Observing that there have been "slippages" in time schedules and deficiencies noticed, Singh had directed that thorough probe should be held by the ministries concerned into complaints of "procedural and other irregularities" and "those found guilty should face severe and exemplary punishment".

He had instructed that all pending works should be completed expeditiously in a time-bound manner and decided to visit select venues of the Games in the last week of this month.