Asiad in Delhi ? No No No
After defiance on the issue of term limits and retirement ages in NSAs, Randhir Singh is now requesting the government to approve IOC’s bid for 2018 Asian games in ...you guessed it... Delhi!!! Poor guy has been left alone after his close ally; a Mr. Suresh came under rough weather. Now aside from the fact that no procedural change has come about to rectify the mistakes of CWG 2010 (Construction delays, Corruption, too many seats to sponsors etc.) and also that hosting such events are glorified ego trips which are no big a waste of money than Lavish weddings and the blowout-preventer of the Deepwater Horizon, there is another strong reason that I personally oppose the bid for Delhi.
Why does Delhi always get to host big Sports events? Not just multi-sport events, F1, Golf … the list goes on
Now, the supporters of Delhi (usually residents of the city) come up with only one argument:
- Delhi has had the advantage of building a lot of infrastructure. Shouldn’t we save a few billion dollars to the nation by staging this in Delhi?
There is of course an unspoken-yet strong and valid argument
- All the decision makers (senior central government and sports officials) live in Delhi and want easy access to the events in addition to the free passes/invitations they will get. Not to mention easy oversight (they will not be easily cheated of their share in the kickbacks) of the projects.
There is no doubt that, as of now, Delhi is the best equipped city in the country to host such international events. Countries less vast and diverse than ours have had event hosting shared between different cities. Still, Delhi continues to be a pampered city, because of the 2nd argument mentioned above.
Rs 70, 000 Crores (~15.5 Bn USD) were spent to host CWG 2010 in a lot of infrastructure Delhi .Beijing 2008 cost 36 billion USD even with it’s infra (which gets a lot of medals). So is there any validity in current infra argument? Also, in case there are any savings, the powers that matter will find ways to spend money e.g. Grander ceremonies; Big ticket performers, larger screens, louder fireworks.There is no saving coming out of hosting such events. If we are doing them ,w e might as well spread the development around.
So in conclusion:
India should decide; no more hosting for at least a decade. Money is better spent in building infrastructure: Stadia where locals can play and improve their game long after they are built. Even if we do host any event, keep it outside Delhi. Delhi is the capital of; and not the whole of, India.
And then of course, there is still the second argument…
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