NEW DELHI: Anilda Thomas could barely speak as she geared up for her 4x400 m event at the Federation Cup a couple of weeks ago. It was not the pressure to perform that was bothering the Kerala athlete; she was nauseating due to a dust allergy. As she coughed, Thomas pointed to the dusty track of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
“It’s difficult to breathe, I'm choking due to so much dust. The more you run on the track, the dustier it gets,” she told The Sunday Standard before heading towards the start line.
Not just Thomas, most of the athletes had their faces covered as they entered the running arena of the stadium to compete in their respective categories. For a moment, the track arena looked like a dust bowl, and even though some of the ground staff tried dusting the track, the situation didn’t improve. The athletes coughed and sneezed all the way even as India’s most prestigious track and field stadium hosted the ‘trials’ for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The Athletics Federation of India and the Delhi Athletics Association blamed it on the Sports Authority of India (SAI), which maintains the stadium, for not being able to keep the stadia clean. “This happens because they don’t clean the tracks,” Sunny Joshua, the president of Delhi Athletics Association, said.
It was not just the dust that was bothering the athletes. The sorry state of the stadia was evident all over it. The Union government had shelled out Rs 961 crore in 2010 to give the stadium a world-class feel. When the NDA came to power in 2014, the sports ministry has promised to maintain the high standards. But the conditions at the JLN tell a different story.
With the side covers coming off the 400x9 lane synthetic warm-up track, some ceiling walls have fallen off near the indoor warm-up arena. “It looks as if there is no maintenance. It was revamped in 2010, and was made a state-of-the-art infrastructure, but now the arena looks so out of place,” coach Virendar Poonia said, adding that throw circle is in a shambles.
Even as athletes and coaches claim that the facilities and conditions aren’t up to the mark, SAI officials have different tales to tell. While the sports ministry talks about splurging big on its infrastructure, figures available at SAI suggest that it receives a Rs 60-70 crore grant from the ministry for the maintenance of five stadiums in Delhi—JLN, Indira Gandhi International Stadium, Talkatora Stadium, Major Dhyanchand Stadium and Siri Fort Stadium. “Out of the grant, only Rs 25-30 crore can be used for development. It’s not possible to maintain all the stadiums,” SAI DG Injeti Srinivas told this newspaper.
Even though he refused to admit that the stadium facilities were not maintained, Srinivas said that “shortage of funds,” is a big challenge for them. “The requirement is far more than what we receive as grant,” he said. While JLN requires the maximum amount of money (Rs 30 crore a year), the money inflow is far less. To keep a check on the shortage of funds, SAI has leased out 150,000 square feet of land (at Rs 400 per square feet) to government departments. “That way, there will be some money coming our way. Our target is to earn Rs 60 crore from the leases. This money will be used for the development of the stadia,” Srinivas added.
Even as SAI officials claim that the maintenance job is done regularly, the insiders claim that the shortage of money stalls the process. “The maintenance job is done by CPWD, for which they charge a lot. The present situation doesn’t allow us to involve CPWD in the maintenance process,” a senior official said, adding that things could improve after the SAI receives Rs 4.5 crore from the leases.
Rs 60-70 crore is granted by the Ministry of Sports for the maintenance of five stadiums—JLN, Indira Gandhi International Stadium, Talkatora Stadium, Major Dhyanchand Stadium and Siri Fort Stadium
Rs 961 crore was spent by the Union government to develop the stadium in 2010
Rs 25-30 crore can only be used for the development of the stadiums
150,000 sq ft of land at the JLN is being leased out by SAI to various government departments. Per square feet would be priced at Rs 400
Rs 60 crore is what the SAI plans to earn from the leases