CWG masscre

News is spread and its being read by all the stakeholders, “widespread mismanagement and corruption in preparation for the esteemed Common Wealth Games”. Though most of us Indians are not actually surprised by the news, because corruption and mismanagement is something we have grown up with. Starting from taking birth (when our parents pay under table commission to get our birth certificates) to getting admission in to a school, to booking railway tickets for the summer holidays, to getting ration from the so called ‘efficient’ PDS system, to getting a job, applying for & getting pension, ending with our dependents claiming insurance after we head towards heaven (not all), we Indians live with and are used to corruption.
So, what is new here and why the same old thing corruption again is occupying front pages of all news papers. The new thing here is the magnitude and the ease with which an event which is so important for our country is seemingly getting defeated even before it has started, this because of the exercise of their birth right ‘corruption’ by the parties involved. New thing is the image of India as a ‘Sporting country’ is at stake.
Alarming fact is that all the stakeholders of the event (central government, sports ministry, organising committee, and the people of India) despite being aware of the importance the event holds are letting it to be shackled by corruption.
The very first mistake our government made was to believe that it can organise this event own its own, without help and assistance from other countries that have experience of organising similar events. The government should have appointed foreign agencies in the task of planning, implementing, and executing the work of CWG.
Secondly, the role of CVC (central vigilance commission) too is suspicious and inadequate. No doubt that it is investigating the cases of corruption related to CWG fairly. But why did it enter so late? It should have coordinated with the organizing committee from the very beginning to keep a check on corruption.
Thirdly, even if we agree the CWG organizing committee did the task of planning very well but no doubt it failed on the task of coordination. Coordination here holds immense importance from the fact that whole work was divided in to sub-tasks and was outsourced to various contractors. It was supposed to coordinate entire assigned work in terms of time, place, quality and delivery.
Now with only fifty odd days left to the start of the event, government needs to tighten its belts, assume the situation to be a warlike emergency and complete the work by standing on head.