Village habitable only for dogs

The Commonwealth Games Village is all about canine capers these days. Stray dogs have managed to breach the three-tier security put in place at the Village and are enjoying the luxuries that were supposed to be for the athletes and delegates. So far only a dozen dogs have been caught.

The Commonwealth Games Village is all about canine capers these days. Stray dogs have managed to breach the three-tier security put in place at the Village and are enjoying the luxuries that were supposed to be for the athletes and delegates. So far only a dozen dogs have been caught.

HT Image

With the water level in the River Yamuna rising for more than two weeks now, the Yamuna bank that was once the home of these stray dogs was inundated, forcing these canines to rush for shelter towards the Games Village. Lucky enough, they found holes in the boundary walls as portions of the concrete were washed away after being lashed hard by Yamuna waves.

“When the dogs found holes in the boundary walls, they dug it up more to gain entry to save their lives. It was not as if they had scaled the walls or entered from the main gate,” said a senior police officer.

While the toilets built in the apartment blocks have drawn flak from foreign athletes and delegates, the security personnel are using ‘portable toilets’. The Games officials had initially forgotten about their sanitary requirements. Delhi Police recently floated tenders for the portable toilets after it was found that no arrangements had been made for them. Also, there are several paramilitary officials deployed there.

From Friday, the 320-odd sanitation staff of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will have a supervisory staff monitoring their work. They will be divided into two groups, one would look only after the basements while the other would be looking after the general cleanliness of the surrounding area.

According to sources, 400 sanitary workers from the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will be joining the MCD staff to clean up the mess. “We hope to complete the sanitation work in the next 48 hours and the situation will be under control,” said an MCD official.