TEAM HERALD
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NEW DELHI: A private company of Delhi bagged the contract for laying the athletic tracks at Bambolim and Mapusa for Lusofonia Games at a cost of over Rs 12 crore citing its Commonwealth Games (CWG) experience without disclosing that it is booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation in one of the cases of the massive CWG scam.
For laying the synthetic outdoor flat lawn bowls greens for the CWG, the Jubilee Sports Private Limited allegedly inflated the costs of the contract from the estimate of Rs 6 crore to Rs 9.88 crore by adding false amounts against its cost and transportation, says the CBI FIR registered in 2011.
The company has since converted itself into Sports Infratech Limited to escape the slur of the CWG scam. It is already facing another case in Kerala for laying a track in 2010 that was later rendered unusable due to “bubble formation” and patches.
Its bad track record should be already known to former CWG official Rajkumar Sacheti, who has been taken as an advisor for Lusofonia Games to be held in Goa in November as he is dealing with arbitration cases of the CWG.
Sources here say two layers of the track have already been laid at Bambolim and may be spoiled as the rains have already started and that may put in jeopardy the athletic track events as there will be little time left for laying new tracks.
Most of the work for the Lusofonia Games is being supervised by bureaucrats who do not have expertise or technical knowledge and depend on the Games organizing officials who may also not have any technical requirements of laying of the tracks.
Roque Dias, the Goan Regional Director of Sports Authority of India (SAI), when contacted, said he also got a complaint from Adhil Somariwala, President of Athletic Federation of India, during the sports ministers’ conference here that the warm-up track was not being laid down as per the international manual that may render Goa incapable of hosting any major international events.
He wondered whether those supervising the company work know that the base of the track is required to be strong with multiple layers of Polyuritine. Moreover, drainage system should be RCC with steel for better stability and also sprinklers for maintaining the lawns, apart from water channels to drain off excess water.
Dias said his worry is that the young generation will have problems and injuries to train at the tracks that are being laid without adhering to the international norms.
