Rain gods may spoil the sport in Games

The Meteorological Department has forecast heavy rains in northern India, including Delhi, in the last week of September and early October. HT reports.

The Meteorological Department has forecast heavy rains in northern India, including Delhi, in the last week of September and early October.

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But this does not seem to bother the organisers of the Commonwealth Games, who are yet to have a contingency plan in place — just in case the skies open up during the Games.

Though politicians and bureaucrats expressed concern about how the monsoon is delaying the completion of various Games projects at the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) meeting on Wednesday, nobody seemed to have a clear idea about what kind of contingency plan was in place.

"Why are you talking about rains during the Games? We hope there is no rain," said S Jaipal Reddy, Urban Development Minister and EGoM chairman.

But on being pressed further on the issue, Reddy admitted, "We are worried. We have a Plan B in place."

He further said, "If it rains two or three days before the Games are set to begin, some items which are part of the opening ceremony can be reviewed."

Here too, there is no clarity about the items that will be dropped from the opening ceremony if there is rain.

M.S. Gill, Union Sports Minister, while mentioning that there has been no setback because of the monsoon, said, "If there is more rain, schedules might get disrupted. We are worried."

On Monday, the EGoM also reviewed the deadlines set for completion of various venues. As per the earlier schedule, the different agencies were told to hand over Games venues to security agencies for putting up various security overlays by September 7.

Reddy sounded apprehensive when asked if all the venues would be ready to be handed over to the security agencies by September 7.

"More or less, all the venues would be ready by September 7," he said.

Clearly, if another major embarrassment, vis-a-vis the rain gods playing spoilsport in the much-maligned Commonwealth Games, is to be avoided, the authorities need to put in place adequate measures to ensure that even if it rains (as has been predicted by the weatherman), the Games go on smoothly.