India heading for humiliating experience: Jaya Bachchan

The Government today faced scathing criticism in the Rajya Sabha over the delay in the preparation of the Commonwealth Games 2010, with SP Member Jaya Bachchan saying the country was heading for a most humiliating experience.

Speaking after Sports Minister MS Gill's statement on a calling attention motion given by BJP Member Kalraj Mishra, Ms Bachchan said going by the state of preparation, it was obvious now that the country was not going to be ready for the Games by October 2010.

''It is too obvious now. We are here to laugh at ourselves and make a mockery of the show,'' she said.

The SP Member said Mr Michael Hooper of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) had already said India was not ready for the Games.

She said the delay in the construction of the venues for different games was depriving the country's sportspersons of the required practice before the event.

Ms Bachchan said she was afraid the country was going in for a most humiliating experience.

Earlier, Mr Mishra had said the CGF officials and IOC were already at loggerheads over the issue which had affected the image of the country. Pointing out that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also agreed with CGF that things were not going well, he said it was for this reason that CGF had to set up a monitoring committee.

He said there were going to be 17 venues but only a very few were complete. The hotel accommodation too was going to be short by 10,000, and the traffic was also going to pose a problem.

Mr Mishra also wanted to know the details of the security arrangements, saying this issue was very serious as terrorists must be looking for any opportunity to disturb the Games.

He said the budget had been increased to Rs 1,600 crore but going by the slow pace of construction, one was wondering how this money would be spent in such a short time.

The Member said the quality would be definitely missing due to the work done in haste.

-- (UNI) -- 25PAR6.xml

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