Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is a sporting event staged between the elite athletes of countries from the Commonwealth. It is held every four years, and is conducted over many sports, in a format much like the Olympic Games. The Commonwealth Games attracts the top athletes of member nations of the Commonwealth, thus making it a world-class competition, second only to the Olympic Games in many people's opinion. The Commonwealth Games are unique in the world of sport as it is based on a historical linkage of Commonwealth countries, not based on geographic features such as the Asian, Pan Am and African Games, or based on climatic conditions such as the Winter Olympics. The Games are also unique as it shares a common language, unlike the Olympic Games, as all athletes and officials can speak with each other in English, creating an atmosphere that has led to the Commonwealth Games being long known as the 'Friendly Games'. history the history of Commonwealth Games dates back to 1930s when the event was held for the first time. However, the concept of conducting a sports event like this trails back to1891. It was Reverend Astley Cooper, who for the first time proposed for a common platform of sports for the members belonging to the British Empire. The underlying aim behind organizing for a sporting event like this was to increase better understanding and goodwill of the British Empire. The idea for organizing Commonwealth Games took shape during the Olympic Games of 1928. The first Commonwealth Games were held in Canada in Hamilton in the year 1930. The name of the event during that time was British Empire Games. The first British Empire Games or Commonwealth Games were attended by 400 athletes coming from 11 nations. The name was changed to British Empire and Commonwealth Games in the year 1954. The year 1978 is witness to the final change in name from "British Empire and Commonwealth Games" to its present day name "Commonwealth Games." This world famous sporting event is held every four years and mainly involves the participation of the most talented athletes of the Commonwealth. Presently there are 53 Commonwealth of Nations members. Out of the 71 teams, which individually participate in this event, only six teams have participated in all the Commonwealth Games that include nations like England, Australia, Scotland, New Zealand, England and Wales. Commonwealth Games is often known as 'Friendly Games'. Some of the sports included in this grand sporting event include swimming, water polo, aquatics, diving, athletics, basketball, table tennis, shooting, weightlifting, fencing, boxing, rugby

sevens, hockey, cycling, netball, squash, triathlon, badminton, synchronized swimming, bowls and gymnastics. While Australia has scored the maximum number of times in the Commonwealth Games for ten games, England is the second highest scoring team for seven games; this country is followed by Canada for one.

Commonwealth games scam

The Commonwealth games scam as it is known involved large scale misappropriation of money during the preparatory phase and conduct of the 2010 Commonwealth games held in New Delhi. The total value of the scam is estimated to be 70,000 crore. The

various contracts were manipulated by Kalmadi and team and allegedly misappropriated huge amounts in the process.

Parties involved
Like any other scams it involved politicians, bureaucrats and corporates acting in collusion

Politicians involved
 Suresh kalmadi, the Congress party representative to 15 LokSabha from the Pune constituency. He was the Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Delhi Commonwealth games. Sheila Dikshit, Chief minister of Delhi: Was indicted for several irregularities in the CWG processes both by Shunglu committee and also by the CAG

Bureaucrats involved
     Lalit Bhanot, Secretary General of the Organising committee TS Darbari, Joint Director General of the Organising committee Sanjay Mahindroo, Deputy Director General of the Organising committee BS Lalli, CEO of Prasar Bharati M Jayachandran, Joint Director General (Accounts and Finance)

Corporations involved
    AM Films AM Cars SIS Live Jaypee Group, Its alleged that the proceeds of corruption are parked here through financial involvement of Suresh Kalmadi's son, Sumeer Kalmadi in the F1 circuit project at Greater Noida. MTNL HCL Infosystems

 

Businessmen involved
  RSP Sinha, MTNL CMD SM Talwar, Executive director MTNL

 

NK Jain, GM (Corporate Sales) MTNL Jitendra Garg, DGM MTNL

Whistleblowers/ Law enforcers

The scam was unearthed by CAG even before the conduct of the games. Presently the scam is being probed by the CBI.

Scam
The various contracts were manipulated by Kalmadi and team and allegedly misappropriated huge amounts in the process.

Time scoring results system

Kalmadi has been accused of awarding illegal contracts to a Swiss firm for TimingScoring-Result system for the Games causing a loss of Rs 95 crore to the exchequer.

Queens baton relay

The Enforcement Directorate is probing the flow of funds and forex during the Queens Baton Relay held in London prior to the Commonwealth Games, apart from investigating the overlays-related works of the Games under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED case registered the case under Fema after British authorities referred to the Indian High Commission a matter regarding hiring of London-based transport firm AM Cars and Vans at exorbitant prices, and to similar high payments to AM Films for installing video screens at the venue of the Queen's Baton Relay.

Broadcast network
CBI registered another case in the Commonwealth Games scam and searched residences of officials of Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited, or MTNL, and Noida based HCL Infosystems for allegedly inflating cost of setting up a broadcast network for the Games by nearly Rs 400 crore. It is alleged that MTNL awarded the work of broadcast network based on IP/MPLS Technology at an exorbitant price of approximately Rs 570.12 crore by manipulating specifications in such a manner as to make them tailor made for the said bidder to the said private company (HCL)," Mishra said. The agency alleged that initial estimate of broadcasting data transmission project for the sporting extravaganza was very limited with an initial estimate of Rs 31.43 crore, but MTNL officials included a Broadcast Video Network based on IP-MPLS technology, which resulted in cost escalation by Rs 380.04 crore. CBI alleged that this change in specification was done with an intention to cause huge pecuniary advantage to HCL Infosystems, causing loss to the exchequer.

Recruitment to Organising committee

CBI sources lodged Preliminary Enquiry report against unknown persons in the Games organising body after it received several complaints and references from the Central Vigilance Commission claiming violation of norms in the appointments. They said the complainants alleged involvement of sacked OC Chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who is at present in judicial custody, and his close aides for irregularities in the recruitment process.

In its PE, the CBI has alleged that during the period of 2003 to 2009, some persons were nominated to the OC who had no expertise for various jobs. The Games organising body had an overall strength of about 2,100 officials engaged for various duties related to the mega sporting event. At present, there are about 100 officials on the rolls. The CVC has also conducted an enquiry into the alleged recruitment scam following complaints that it showed ghost employees on its muster rolls and violated norms while inducting people. The High Level Shunglu Committee had also found alleged irregularities in the recruitment procedures followed by certain OC officials.

CNN-IBN NDTV Hindustan Times

The CAG has questioned the deals between the CWG and certain media houses as the organising committee (OC) apparently resorted to pick-and-choose policy in the award of contracts worth over Rs. 6.73 crore. The CAG, in its report, tabled in Parliament last week, has dubbed the process arbitrary and biased. The contract for production and broadcasting of commercials was given to two news channels, CNN-IBN and NDTV. The CAG said the OC followed an arbitrary approach with no planning for specific channels, time slots and cost benefit analysis. The CAG is more severe in its observations on the contract for creating a Games Time website, meant to put out real time information on sporting events, given to HT-Hungama - a consortium comprising Hindustan Times and Hungama. It has lambasted the process of awarding the contract to the consortium and said their work was deficient. A benevolent OC overlooked the non-performance and did not encash the performance guarantee of Rs. 0.29 crore. A contract tweaked in favour of HT-Hungama had no other provisions for penalties case of non-performance, the CAG said. It said the bidding process was squeezed and completed within two months, leading to several irregularities. Among the three bidders, HT-Hungama's documentation was deficient but ignored by the technical committee. It led the CAG to conclude that the process was tailored in HT-Hungama's favour.

Poor ticket sales and attendance

The start of the Games saw extremely poor ticket sales, with many venues near empty. In a press conference, organising chairman Suresh Kalmadi admitted that there were problems, and blamed [46] empty venues on ticket booths not being set up outside stadiums. Commonwealth Games chief Mike Fennell admitted that many venues had been nearly empty on the opening day of the Games, saying "A number of venues do not have lots of spectators [...] one area which causes us [47] concern". On the second day of competition, less than 100 people filled the hockey venuethe 19,000-seat MDC Stadium. Less than 20 people watched the first tennis match of the tournament in [48] the 5,000-seat tennis stadium, and just 58 fans watched the netball opening match. One Indian competitor tried to buy tickets for relatives online, only to be informed by the website that [49] tickets were sold out. When he arrived to compete, he found the venue to be empty. The streets of Delhi were deserted for the cycling road races and walking event. [edit]Spectators
[45]

response at opening ceremony

At the opening ceremony, the chairman of the organising committee Suresh Kalmadi faced embarrassment, when he was booed by spectators at the start of his welcome speech to 60,000 [50] spectators. Kalmadi came under further strain when he "thanked" the late Princess Diana for attending the opening ceremony of the games. The chairman made the blunder at a press conference

saying Yes, Princess Diana was there, after which he immediately corrected himself by saying [51] Prince Charles and (Camilla) the Duchess of Cornwall. [edit]Opening

ceremony

The Australian Commonwealth contingent expressed frustration over the opening ceremony, in which there were claims athletes and delegation support staff were "treated like cattle" and subjected to [52] "disgraceful" and unbearable conditions. Australia's chef de mission Steve Moneghetti complained about the athletes being trapped in "absolute cauldron conditions" under the main stadium before marching for the opening ceremony. The Australians were stuck in a tunnel, where Moneghetti described the temperature as exceeding 40 C (104 F) due to a lack of airconditioning and ventilation. When attempting to move out, the Australian delegation was stopped by staff. When the contestants were finally able to move out into the arena, they were described as being emotionally affected.

Response to scam
   Kalmadi and Bhanot was sacked from the Organising Commitee by the Sports ministry on Jan 2011 Shunglu panel was constituted by Prime minister Manmohan Singh to go into the irregularities in the conduct of the Games. After his arrest on 25 Apr 2011, Suresh kalmadi was suspended by the Indian National Congress

Arrests made
  TS Darbari and Sanjay Mahindroo was arrested by the CBI on 23 Nov 2010 Suresh kalmadi was arrested on 25 Apr 2011 and the next day was sent to eight days police custody.

Release on bail
Suresh Kalmadi often regarded as the CWG scamster was given bail by the Delhi High court on 19 Jan 2012. The stand taken by the CBI in High court helped Kalmadi secure bail.

Latest on cwg scam

Enforcement Directorate filed a charge sheet for alleged financial irregularities in the conduct of a premier event of the Commonwealth Games and named sacked OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi for allowing "unauthorised payments" along with five of his colleagues. The complaint (equivalent of a charge sheet) was filed by the agency to its adjudicating authority here and alleges foreign exchange contraventions to the tune of about Rs 5 crore in the conduct of the Queens Baton Relay(QBR) held in 2009 in London. The glitzy event was attended by PresidentPratibha Patil, Queen Elizabeth II and a host of top Indian athletes and Organising Committee (OC) officials.

The ED also named five OC officials apart from Kalmadi in its complaint -- former secretary general Lalit Bhanot, director general V K Verma, deputy director general Sanjay Mahindroo, joint director general (accounts and finance) M Jaychandran and A K Mattoo. Kalmadi, according to agency's complaint, was named for providing his signatures in his "individual capacity" and allowing "unauthorised payments" of more than Rs 8 crore and few others for the conduct of the QBR and also side-stepping five other service providers in favour of a firm -- AM Films and Cars limited. The ED complaint also mentions how the OC violated its own charter for the event and hired luxury vehicles like Mercedes S-class, BMW-7 series thereby violating the authorisation for hiring only "mid-size" cars for ferrying guests, athletes and other dignitaries. ED's probe, according to sources, relied heavily on the information provided by the RBI in this regard and other documents it has seized earlier from the OC. A noting in the minutes of the meeting of the committee for evaluation of bids relating to the work of arranging display services as a part of crowd control measure during the QBR had provided vital leads to the agency. "The firm has asked for hundred per cent advanced payment and in view of the short time available and the risk of event cancellation, the committee (OC) recommends that the advance payment of hundred per cent may be given to the firm (AM Films) to facilitate taking up the work in time," the minutes had stated. The sources said that violation under FEMA are related to the arrangements of this 100 per cent advance payment to A M Films. According to sources, the minutes of the meeting said that the committee "also expressed concerns on the vendor not willing to deliver services without payment and they indicated that if the vendor does not confirm to provide the display screens they would have no options but to cancel the QBR event" and hence the legal route was allegedly skipped to conduct the UK-based event. The agency also said the actual QBR event had instances of "over-invoicing" by A M Films and in some cases the rates were more than three-times higher than what was promised by another firm JMW.