Key Games projects badly delayed: CAG

NEW DELHI: The dream of making the national capital a world-class city with a complete infrastructure makeover by the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) seems to be fading with a recent evaluation revealing that most of the projects are running a high risk of missing the deadline.

Sources said an evaluation study carried out by the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has painted a very grim picture of the 35 infrastructure projects initiated by the government and which were to be completed before the start of the CWG.

Among the capital���s 20 major projects, in as many as nine the work shortfall is by more than 50% and all of them face the ���high risk��� of missing the revised deadline set by the government. In fact, six crucial flyovers and road corridors have already been delinked from the CWG as the work on them could not be started even till July 2009.

It may be recalled that the government had set two-year timeframes between January 2004 and May 2006 for laying out the plan for its different projects linked to CWG and for taking required approvals for each of them while
the work was to be completed in the next two years by May 2008.

Interestingly, for the projects that have now been shelved or delinked from the CWG, in many of them the reason given is the government���s failure to obtain a clearance from the Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC).

Sources said in the three delinked projects that are considered crucial to the CWG, Shastri Park tunnel corridor to connect east Delhi to north and north-east Delhi, the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg flyover and the elevated east-west corridor from east Delhi to CP area for connecting Games Village to IG Stadium Velodrome and Yamuna Sports Complex, the government had failed to obtain DUAC clearance and hence the projects could not start.

In the other three delinked projects, right turn signal free at JB Tito Marg, the SP Mukherjee Marg corridor and the Masoodpur corridor improvement and Mahipalpur tunnel project, the reasons range from proposal pending for approval with the DDA to the government not having any answer for the delay, as revealed by CAG audit.

The nine projects that are running a hig h risk of missing the deadline include the Salimgarh Fort-Velodrome Road project (which will decongest the road around Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium and link it to east Delhi), Apsara Border flyover (to improve connectivity to Yamuna Sports Complex), the bridge at Neela Hauz (to provide alternate route to airport via Vasant Kunj), the road under bridge at Vivek Vihar railway crossing (which will do away with level crossings), widening of Minto Bridge (for construction of fifth and sixth railway lines), the Shyamlal College-GT Road flyover (to improve inter-state connectivity), the UP link road (for signal-free drive from Akshardham to Noida) and road under bridge connecting road no 58 and 64 and road number 68 (this again will do away with level crossings).