Fresh ministerial group for 2010 games

At the receiving end for slow pace of work related to the C'wealth Games, the Union Cabinet constituted yet another GoM to speed up bureaucratic processes to ensure that infrastructure projects are not delayed, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 4, 2008, 23:20:21 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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AT THE receiving end for slow pace of work related to the Commonwealth Games, the Union Cabinet constituted yet another Group of Ministers (GoM) to speed up bureaucratic processes to ensure that infrastructure projects are not delayed. A group, headed by HRD minister Arjun Singh, is already in place for coordinating between various stakeholders in conducting the games.

Government functionaries insisted that this GoM, with Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, Tourism Minister Ambika Soni, Sports Minister M.S. Gill and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal as members, would be different. It will deliberate on specific issues on conducting the opening and closing ceremonies of the games, shortage of hotel rooms and delay in certain infrastructure-related projects.

Sibal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that a detailed discussion was held following Sports minister M.S. Gill’s presentation on issues relating to the games.

“There is an element of urgency and everything must be completed well before time,” Sibal said.

The new GoM will look into all outstanding issues including major shortfall in anticipated hotel accommodation in Delhi for the games. As against the requirement of around 30,000 rooms, the Capital has only about 12,000 hotel rooms and another 5,000 in guesthouses and paying guest accommodation.

Maintaining there was a shortage of accommodation and hotels for the mega event, Sibal said the GoM would also delve into how to meet this shortage. A proposal has been mooted to allow use of residential accommodations to house visitors during the games.

Another issue that will be on the GoM deliberation table would be how to showcase India during the games. “We have to decide how to showcase the country as China did during Olympic Games,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sports Minister Gill also appraised the Cabinet of the Indian team’s preparation for the games.

The Commonwealth Games are scheduled in Delhi in October 2010.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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