Fears over readiness of India World Cup venues

NEW DELHI — Just six weeks before the cricket World Cup, several venues including India’s most famous stadium are chaotic scenes of cranes and rubble, raising fears they will not be ready in time.

The tournament, being held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from February 19, will attract huge crowds and worldwide television audiences drawn by the best international players competing in 49 matches.

But it threatens to be a replay of New Delhi’s recent Commonwealth Games, which instead of marking the arrival of a new, modern India on the world stage became a national embarrassment of delays, shoddy works, and alleged corruption.

As the cricket clock ticks down, anxiety is growing over the preparedness of organisers, with a ten-million-dollar upgrade to the 80,000-seater Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata causing the biggest headache.

Amid the diggers, dust and bare concrete, hundreds of labourers wearing virtually no safety equipment are toiling day and night to finish off two new blocks of stands which are still covered in scaffolding.

Pillars rise out of the new stands awaiting roofs that have not been begun, while the club house is still under renovation, with many toilets broken or blocked. Old team photographs are covered in builders’ dust.

Seats are not fitted in many tiers, the outer wall surrounding the venue has collapsed in sections, corporate boxes are far from complete, and parts of the stadium are still being dug up.

“It’s impossible to complete such a massive project in just 11 months,” Sajal Pramanik, manager of the Shapoorji Pallanji construction company which is building the two new blocks of seating, told AFP.

“It’s not magic. We need time to complete the work. I think the roof on the eastern block cannot be fixed before February.”

The ground -- one of the great pilgrimage sites of international cricket -- also has major security problems, with curious members of the public free to walk around it despite the risks of militant attacks in volatile South Asia. Before the Commonwealth Games in October, the budget ballooned wildly out of control and poor facilities nearly triggered a boycott. A police probe into corruption has since targeted senior figures, including the head of the Games’ organising committee, who was questioned by detectives on Wednesday. “Apart from the construction of the two new blocks (of seating), there are other problems at Eden Gardens,” the Cricket Association of Bengal’s joint secretary Biswarup De admitted to AFP.

“We are in talks with ICC officials to solve the problems such as sponsors’ tickets and hospitality. We will leave no stone unturned.”

Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium, where the final will be held, is another venue rushing to be ready on time after two years of renovations at a cost of 55 million dollars.

A report by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s governing body, leaked to the Deccan Herald newspaper last month named Wankhede, along with Eden Gardens, as not certain to meet a January 31 deadline for hand-over to the ICC.

The report said areas of concern include the floodlights’ power supply, new glass that reflects into batsmen’s eyes, the umpires’ room put in the wrong place and unsuitable anti-doping facilities and medical rooms.

Lalchand Rajput, joint honorary secretary of the Mumbai Cricket Association, told AFP that targets to complete work by the end of 2010 had been missed due to late monsoon rains, but the schedule was back on track.

“The ICC made some suggestions that we have taken into account and the construction is under control. They (the ICC) will be coming for an inspection on January 24,” he said. “We should be ready.” New Delhi’s ground -- the Feroz Shah Kotla -- had a crisis in 2009 when a game against Sri Lanka was abandoned after the pitch was deemed too dangerous, but inspectors have since passed the surface following a complete re-lay.