Corruption in CWG—System Error

(Published in The New Indian Express on 27 Oct. 2010)

Bikash Choudhury


Suresh Kalmadi was damned by one and all for all the mesh that came to the notice of media just before the beginning of the games. A nation of billion people heaves a shy of relief on successful conclusion of Delhi Common Wealth Games-2010. Mr. Kalmadi unabashedly claimed credit for incident free games from the podium of closing ceremony of CWG. But, some how not many in the gallery could summon the courage to clap; knowing how the events preceding the games had soiled the prestige of our nation in global forum. It looked as though India not quite capable to conduct international events of this magnitude. Every body was comparing with the Olympic games of 2008 at Bezing, China. Having said that, can we actually blame a single individual or an organization for all the follies that eventually forced the Prime Minister of the country to take stock?

Corruption actually follows the laws of attraction. More the discretion of spending public money with the Govt. Babus; more is the attraction of making quick bucks on the side. It was first of all very wrong to entrust so much public money to be spent by a temporary body like “Organizing Committee” without the wherewithal to monitor spending of this nature and magnitude. Having done that at least Govt. should have insisted on a transparent system of purchase mechanism that is available on demand. E-tendering has become a common practice in many organizations to cut down time and money in procurement of goods and services. Organizing Committee (OC) has given a complete go by to such standards and that resulted in buying things at 2-5 times of actual cost. Needless to mention that a few functionaries would have lined their pockets at the expense of the reputation of the country. Only if we can find and punish such individuals then the whole system would take notice; otherwise same charade would surface in the events next. What happened in CWG was an error in the whole system; and, not a temporary delinquency on the part of a few responsible individuals or organization. If we wish to conduct more such global sporting events in future; then, a distinct mechanism can be developed once and for all to deal with the International events of this nature which will cut repetitive work and improve efficiency and effectiveness of the system that deliver results.