Thieves strike Games accessories

City's civic agencies stretched themselves out to make it look beautiful for the Commonwealth Games. But maintaining the looks is turning into a nightmare for them.

City's civic agencies stretched themselves out to make it look beautiful for the Commonwealth Games. But maintaining the looks is turning into a nightmare for them.

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Hundreds of potted plants that adorn the streets of Delhi are missing from places such as Yamuna Sports Complex, Games Village, Model Town and Sardar Patel Marg. In addition to this, reflectors, noise barriers, dustbin covers, wall wraps, fittings of streetlights, railings and even the tiles that were laid before the Games have started disappearing.

Noise barriers that were put up on the Rao Tula Ram Marg flyover and reflectors from Geeta Colony Bridge have also disappeared.

Not only this, illuminated Shera which were put up at a number of bus stands in the city have also been dismantled and the vinyl posters, tubelights have been stolen.

"At a number of places noise barriers, reflectors, wall wraps and even tiles have started disappearing. We have asked the private companies to take charge of the maintenance who had executed these projects. But we can't be present everywhere," said a senior MCD official.

The potted plants were made by the agencies such as like Public Works Department, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) especially for the Games. The civic agencies have started placing them inside the nurseries where they were grown.

This is not the first time that such cases have started piling up. In July too, toilet bowls of waterless urinals, construction material had also been stolen. These waterless urinals were constructed at a cost of R4.5 lakh and the civic agency had then decided to rope in security guards to man them.