Deadline for Nehru stadium extends by three months

The extravagant opening cermony has forced a long delay in the completion of the project work of Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium and the venue will be nowhere near its completion by the end of this year, as being claimed by the Organising Committee.

The stadium will now have an underground 150 meter-long tunnel at the centre which will be used for the opening ceremony that will be staged at the Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium.

Sports Minister MS Gill today visited the Nehru and Talkatora stadiums to take stock of the progress and said he was happy with the way things are shaping up.

''The Prime Minister and the Cabinet have instructed that the opening ceremony should display the cultural beauty of India and committee under Bharat Bala, which also has Prasoon Joshi, Shyam Benegal and Javed Akhtar, has been formed,'' Gill told mediapersons here at the Nehru stadium today.

''They (committee members) have had long discussions with the Organising Committee and have asked to prepare a trench for the opening ceremony,'' he added.

However, the construction of the tunnel will further delay the completion of the venue by three months.

The deadline for the Nehru stadium was to complete the venue by the end of December this year but now it will only be completed by March next year.

One of the engineers, who has been working at the venue for last one year, told UNI that it was only today that his team came to know of the development which will take time.

''It will be a 150 meter-long tunnel which will be 4mtr wide and 3mts high. The deadline was to complete the work by December this year but now that a tunnel has to be prepared, it will only be competed by March next year,'' he said.

''We now have to complete the venue in 165 days,'' he added.

Gill meanwhile, was sure that the stadium would be a masterpiece after it is completed as the infrastructure is being flown in from various parts of the world.

''I have seen the stadium and and had long dicussions with the engineers and the SAI officials and I can say that the Nehru stadium will be a high technology complex.

''For technical assistance we have people coming from Germany, US, Mexico and most of the things that are being used here are from abroad.

''We have these cables which we got from Germany and this cables will lift a roof. The precision and quality of worl is very high and the margin of error is minimal,'' added the Sports Minister.

''All that we are trying to set is that we are preparing an architetural beauty and it could take time sop we must appreciate the efforts that are being made rather than criticising,'' he stressed.

The Sports Minister was also hopeful that his meeting with the Commonwealth Games Federation Chief Mike Fennell this week in London will help in ressurecting the governing body's relation with the Organising Committee.

''I have already spoken to Mr Fennell on phone and will be meeting him this week in London and everything will be fine,'' Gill added.

-- (UNI) -- 26SPD13.xml

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