The Burden Called Commonwealth Games - Accommodations - Part 3
The Commonwealth Games has thrown up a number of challenges for Delhi.
On of the more difficult challenges to solve is the problem of accommodation.
A huge number of visitors from outside India are going to arrive during the Commonwealth Games.
Delhi as usual is far from ready to accommodate these huge numbers.
To make matters worse the government has run into problems with various environment groups for building the main Games site on a reclaimed river bed of the Yamuna (one of the main rivers in north India)! So what are the real issues on the ground? For one - its the quality of the hotel accommodation.
Or rather the lack of it.
Most hotels in Delhi are of the "Cheap and Best" variety.
Which means they are cheap and they are quite far from the best.
Bad service is common, but even more common is theft and other petty crimes.
Leaving out the few five star accommodations - most of Delhi hotels are very far from international standards.
Next is the coordination between the hotels and the games governing body.
Most of the hotels do not have a formal arrangement for displaying their booking status.
They are usually tied up with the travel agencies and these in turn coordinate directly with customers.
However this system is totally useless during the Games - as most would like a central authority to take care of bookings etc.
The result is chaos.
Given that so many people will suddenly appear at the same time - it might actually be fun to watch the expats get tossed around from one hotel to another looking for non-existent accommodation.
During the last year a lot of government held land was auctioned to private bidders to build hotels for making up the imminent shortfall in accommodations.
However the auction was thought of more as a land grabbing opportunity by the big real-estate companies.
They bought this land at high prices - to the pleasure of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA in short).
But that also meant that they have a cash shortage when it was time to build the hotels on that land.
According to the latest updates - the number of hotels that will be ready will be outnumbered many to one by those that never took off.
There are many sites on which even a single brick has not been laid! There are a host of other problems that plague the hotel industry in Delhi.
Hygiene is another such issue.
There are usually no health inspectors in any city in India.
The few that may exist for the sake of the Games, can be easily bought off with paltry sums of money.
Therefore the danger of catching food borne diseases is quite high.
For the average expat the best recourse would be to cook their own food - if there are such arrangements in their room.
Water may be bought in bottled form - but even here there is a danger of buying spurious bottles.
Advice for Expats looking for accommodation during the games:
On of the more difficult challenges to solve is the problem of accommodation.
A huge number of visitors from outside India are going to arrive during the Commonwealth Games.
Delhi as usual is far from ready to accommodate these huge numbers.
To make matters worse the government has run into problems with various environment groups for building the main Games site on a reclaimed river bed of the Yamuna (one of the main rivers in north India)! So what are the real issues on the ground? For one - its the quality of the hotel accommodation.
Or rather the lack of it.
Most hotels in Delhi are of the "Cheap and Best" variety.
Which means they are cheap and they are quite far from the best.
Bad service is common, but even more common is theft and other petty crimes.
Leaving out the few five star accommodations - most of Delhi hotels are very far from international standards.
Next is the coordination between the hotels and the games governing body.
Most of the hotels do not have a formal arrangement for displaying their booking status.
They are usually tied up with the travel agencies and these in turn coordinate directly with customers.
However this system is totally useless during the Games - as most would like a central authority to take care of bookings etc.
The result is chaos.
Given that so many people will suddenly appear at the same time - it might actually be fun to watch the expats get tossed around from one hotel to another looking for non-existent accommodation.
During the last year a lot of government held land was auctioned to private bidders to build hotels for making up the imminent shortfall in accommodations.
However the auction was thought of more as a land grabbing opportunity by the big real-estate companies.
They bought this land at high prices - to the pleasure of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA in short).
But that also meant that they have a cash shortage when it was time to build the hotels on that land.
According to the latest updates - the number of hotels that will be ready will be outnumbered many to one by those that never took off.
There are many sites on which even a single brick has not been laid! There are a host of other problems that plague the hotel industry in Delhi.
Hygiene is another such issue.
There are usually no health inspectors in any city in India.
The few that may exist for the sake of the Games, can be easily bought off with paltry sums of money.
Therefore the danger of catching food borne diseases is quite high.
For the average expat the best recourse would be to cook their own food - if there are such arrangements in their room.
Water may be bought in bottled form - but even here there is a danger of buying spurious bottles.
Advice for Expats looking for accommodation during the games:
- Book your accommodation really early --> dates are 3 October to 14 October, 2010.
- Try to get a local perspective on your allotted accommodation, ask a friend in Delhi if you can!
- Try to find accommodation with friends and family if possible.
- Keep checking with your local booking agent even after booking - they may double/triple book!
- Keep a handy set of phone numbers of friends/alternate hotels - just in case!
Source...