Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 29 (IANS) Sports Minister M.S. Gill Saturday pulled up the national federations for hosting major events before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, saying it was putting an additional burden on the government to complete the infrastructure on time.
Major events like the hockey and shooting World Cups are scheduled early next year before the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in October. CWG organisers and the government are fighting against time to complete the infrastructure.

Gill said the federations could have avoided hosting such events before the CWG.

“I don’t think it is sensible to have so many major events in various disciplines before the Commonwealth Games. It’s not that I am against the test events, but the CWG in itself is a big challenge and organising such events before that will only overburden us,” Gill told reporters at the National Stadium Saturday on the birth anniversary of hockey legend Dhyan Chand.

Gill said that test events have put more pressure on the authorities because they have to complete the venues by year-end.

“It means that we have to complete the infrastructure of some venues by December-January,” he added.

“The test events are not of any big importance. They are meant just to check minor preparatory things of stadiums.”

Construction work at the National Stadium, venue of the hockey World Cup scheduled from Feb 28, is far from complete. The stadium will host a four-nation event before the World Cup.

The capital will also host the Commonwealth Shooting Championship in February before the World Cup in March. The construction work at the Karni Singh Shooting Range, which will host both the tournaments, is running way behind schedule.

The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had to move the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships scheduled in December from the national capital to Jalandhar as the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium was not ready to host the event.