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If you analyse as to what went wrong with CWG 2010, Basic principles that determine the success of infrastructure projects seem to have been missed. PR Swarup and Ashutosh Bhardwaj suggest remedial measures if India is live its Olympics dream
Even before the noise about shoddy construction, bad housekeeping and poor procurement of goods and services for the Common Wealth Games 2010 has died, there are talks about hosting Olympics. The spirit is laudable but the question remains - can we do it?
Things appeared to have been falling in place just a couple of days before the Common Wealth Games began. Now the question is whether the dust will settle down on the failures and fiascos that witnessed the massive build-up to these games dubbed as the national pride of India. There have been and will be debates and deliberations as to what went wrong and who is responsible for the way things have been handled. Speaking purely from our industry’s perspective, a distinct pattern that has clearly emerged - utter lack of planning and scant respect for construction Best Practices or their absence altogether.
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Indeed Rome can also be built in a day but to achieve that you need tremendous project planning, an impeccable implementation schedule and competent monitoring and quality evaluation. All three qualities mentioned have been demonstrated in the creation of the humongous infrastructure for the just concluded games but in bits and pieces. No concerted plans were drawn up or if they existed, were not implemented properly.
The lack of detailed planning and coordination amongst the stakeholder has been amply demonstrated time and again and is evident from the various faux-pas committed by the Organising Committee and other stakeholders. From the collapse of a foot-over bridge to presenting a Games Village not completely ready for use are the many pain points that present an opportunity for an entire nation to learn and overcome our callous and at times passing attitude for creation of a world class infrastructure. It is not that we don’t have the requisite expertise, resources or commitment to build, but somewhere, we do lack the on critical factor required for success – Project Detailing.
If you sit back and analyse as to where we have gone wrong, a set of very rudimentary and fundamental principles that determine the success of infrastructure projects seems to have been missed. Whether these are faults of the systems or deliberate attempts is a question that can be left for the auditors to decide. However, there are a few measures that could have been put in place to make the entire experience of the Commonwealth Games 2010 far more satisfying for the entire nation.
Transparency
The root cause of disputes and delays in many construction contracts emanates from opaque and subjective procurement practices. The woes are compounded by a delayed decision making process that throws more than a spanner in the juggernaut that is yet to roll or gains the critical mass for completion.
Enough fingers have already been raised on the transparency of the procurement and contracting practices that have been employed for sourcing the goods and services for the games. In fact these practices and contracts often become the project retarders and the lack of equitable and objective contract clauses lead to disputes and time and cost overruns. The lack of an effective mechanism to chose the most effective contractor or supplier for project implementation results in overspending and becomes a drain on the public exchequer.
The fact that these games are billed as one of the costliest commonwealth games in the history is a testimony to this fact. “The lowest is not always the best” and global best practices today clearly demonstrate a shift towards finding the most competent contractor or supplier and not the cheapest one. A competent partner is an asset to the project and brings expertise and technology which coupled with experiential learning makes the project a success.
There is another major issue, which continues to remain ignored. It is availability of a veritable data base. Procurement of this magnitude, along with the limitation of time available to accomplish the task in hand, the absence of a database is a major handicap.
Collection of information about the availability of goods and services, and contact details of service providers, should have been completed well before the procurement process, and should the nation plan and work towards hosting the Olympics, the exercise must begin now!
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