Is the Games expenditure justified?

While events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi doubtless boost infrastructure, they entail a development model that is lopsided.

Harsh Shrivastava,
Senior Vice-president (Mktg)
Feedback Ventures

"The construction of roads, flyovers, car parks, housing, drainage and metro systems will create many additional direct and indirect jobs. Many of these jobs will be semi-skilled and unskilled. Poor people, many from outside Delhi, will come here to work on all these projects."

India wants Foreign Direct Investment. FDI brings jobs; FDI brings superior management skills; FDI brings foreign exchange; FDI benefits suppliers who have to adhere to higher standards; FDI forces the rest of Indian industry to become more competitive. FDI is good.

The Commonwealth Games in 2010 in Delhi will see a lot of investment""by federal, state, and municipal agencies; by hotel companies; by transportation providers; and by other businesses. I call all this investment as Commonwealth (Games) Directed Investment or CDI. The Delhi government estimates CDI at more than Rs 26,810 crore, if you count metro and airport expansion, flyovers, parking lots, drainage and so on. This does not include investment by the private sector""in hotels, for instance.

CDI is as good as FDI. The construction of all these roads, flyovers, car parks, housing, drainage and metro systems will create many additional direct and indirect jobs. Many of these jobs will be semi-skilled and unskilled. Poor people, many from outside Delhi, will come here to work on all these projects.

They will remit a large portion of their salaries back to their villages. The poorer districts of Bihar, eastern UP and Orissa are, thus, likely to benefit from CDI in Delhi. India's economy will benefit before the Games start.

Once the athletes return to their countries, CDI will ensure that they leave behind a much improved Delhi. Superior infrastructure will allow Delhi's businesses, indeed businesses across the NCR, to become more globally competitive.

Yes, Delhi already has good infrastructure, but it is nowhere near world standards; thus, CDI will bring higher incremental improvement than it would have done in other, more developed countries. Delhi is today a huge commercial, IT, tourist and industrial hub, and if it gets easier to do business here, I'm sure that investment in the region, both FDI and domestic, will rise after 2010, creating many more jobs. This effect can be called Commonwealth Driven Infrastructure, or CDI by another name; India's economy will benefit after the Games end.

FDI is also supposed to bring better management practices. CDI will also improve the management of large public projects in India. The pressure to complete projects before the Games open; ensuring quality, so that our guests don't go away with a bad image of the country; biding out projects transparently, especially with the RTI hanging over bureaucrats; planning investments in an organised way so that work in one place doesn't delay work elsewhere; coordinating the actions of many different agencies will together bring out a step change in the working practices of our planners, bureaucrats and all those involved in ensuring the successful implementation of CDI.

Yes, mistakes will be made; there will be delays; there will be "scams". But in July 2010, India as a country would have learnt some valuable lessons in handling large projects, especially those that involve both public and private investment, acting in concert. These project management skills will benefit the economy before, during, after, and indeed, much after the Games end.

CDI is better than FDI. First, CDI will be mostly through domestic sources. No forex will be used to repatriate dividends or interest. Rather, it is Indian savers who will benefit from all this spending. Given the tourists who are expected to attend the Games, CDI will earn foreign exchange. Second, CDI will result in both Countrywide (poorer districts and project skills) and Delhi-wide (infrastructure) Improvement, which is more than can be said of FDI, since that is restricted to only a few sectors and a few locations.

So, if FDI is good, CDI is better, and obviously ODI is better still. That's why we've just announced that Delhi will bid for the Olympic Games in 2020!

Arvind Kejriwal,
Founder
Parivartan

"The public discourse almost sounds like infrastructure matters because it serves the purpose of the Games, and not as an end in itself. Are we telling our citizens that they must wait for opportunities where we brace ourselves for foreign scrutiny, or keep waiting forever?"

As Delhi continues on its development blitzkrieg as part of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, we need to stop one moment and ponder: What are our priorities? Those should be sorted out first. There should be a way people go about setting priorities. If the entire country feels that the Commonwealth Games should be held, then I am all for it. But if it is just one set of people in power who decided arbitrarily to host a particular sporting event at a huge cost, then I have reservations.

If the government were to announce that it was distributing Rs 1,000 crore as a subsidy to the poor, say as a minimum income for individuals below the poverty line, there would be a hue and cry from our economists. They would blame the government for undertaking 'populist' measures that bleed the economy.

But Rs 80,000 crore for the Commonwealth or some other Games is fine with them. The supposed reasoning is that it will give a boost to Delhi's infrastructure. That may be true, but Delhi already boasts one of the best facilities in the country, even as large parts continue to languish in the dark.

Is it fair to devote the country's resources to make better what is already good, while ignoring that which demands urgent attention? We are a poor country with limited resources and there are competing demands on our resources. Hence, expenditure or investment has to be carefully planned.

There is another point. Today, in Delhi, everything is being done in the name of Commonwealth Games, whether it is roads, flyovers or basic amenities like waste dumps, bus stands or public urinals. Is this city running for the Games or for its citizens? The public discourse almost sounds like infrastructure matters because it serves the purpose of the Games, and not as an end in itself. Are we telling our citizens that they must wait for opportunities where we brace ourselves for foreign scrutiny, or keep waiting forever? Are citizens important at all for this country? Development plans should be done on the basis of citizens' needs and not for an event.

That looks at the socio-political reasoning behind my argument. An entirely different but equally pertinent point is whether events like the Asian or Commonwealth Games help boost sports in our country? Most countries that apply for such events boast of an honourable tradition of good performance in international sporting events. Has it even been that a country with nary a globally competitive sporting facility to speak of, where the vast potential of generations of talented children is not being tapped, sets out to showcase its grandeur to the outside world? There are millions of children who want to excel in games and various other athletic skills. Where are the facilities to tutor them""the coaches, be it in city or village schools?

I have nothing against the Games. But there are two important things that call for immediate attention. First, our resources are limited and we need to question if we can afford such expenses? I am afraid decisions are being taken without consulting the public. Let there be a public debate on this issue. Let the supporters of such events prove that the economy on the whole is improving by holding them. And when I speak of improvement, I mean to include not only the metros but the Indian grassroots. More probingly still, do we have to hold such events in every town and city of the country to improve their economy? Will our development goals stoop to that level?

The second key point is to ensure that such events do not dictate development goals. We have to design a governance model, a system that is sensitive to the needs of the people. A governance model that is dictated by the needs of a major event rather than those of the citizens' is unacceptable. It cannot do the citizens any good. It cannot help the country.