By IANS,
New Delhi: After a long delay, envoys from Commonwealth nations will finally visit the Commonwealth Games village Saturday, even as diplomats pointed out that there was still a lot of work left for the residential facilities for athletes to be brought up to par.
“The high commissioners will be visiting the visiting the village tomorrow. We had been asking for this for a long time,” said a diplomat from a major Commonwealth nation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity as he did not want to “spoil” ties with India.
While this would be first group visit, diplomats from the 71 participating nations and territories have been individually visiting the village to see for themselves the facilities. And till now they have not been impressed, despite what Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi might be saying.
“We are not happy (with the general level of hygiene),” he said, though he noted that “our alloted acommodation was not as bad.”
The complaints have ranged from unwashed toilets to pan stains on shower walls and stains on bed sheets left behind by the workers. “We had asked them to clean all that up,” he said.
The ground floor of the multi-storey athlete’s village still had some debris lying around and a “stinking smell”.
“We have told them that water should be drained well,” the diplomat, from an Asian country, said.
There was also resentment that the Organising Committee was “misleading” the media in stating that chefs de mission of the teams were satisfied with the village facilities. This is wrong. Most of the chefs de mission are not even here. So, how can Suresh Kalmadi say that they are happy,” he asked.
But there are also bright spots – chiefly the dining hall. “We have no problems with the dining hall. We tried some of the food and it was fantastic,” he said.
The Saturday visit by the senior diplomats will be a way to look at the facilities after the Organizing Committee had done some intensive clean-up of the premises.
But, the diplomats have not been able to get missions to visit the actual games venues. “They (OC) still haven’t entertained our request to go to the stadiums,” said the diplomat.