Procedures were transparent: CWG Organising Committee

New Delhi: So how does someone explain toilet rolls for nearly Rs 4000 or air conditioners for Rs 4 lakh or treadmills for Rs 9 lakh? Well the Commonwealth Organising Committee (OC) tried to explain on Wednesday.

Faced with mounting allegations of renting and purchasing items for players at hugely inflated prices, the OC tried to convince sceptics by saying that this was because of high management costs for suppliers to bring and manage these facilities at various games locations.

"The inflated price is because the management costs are about 15-20 percent of the tender, which is reflected here," said A K Saxena, Joint Director General, Organising Committee.

Even an umbrella was bought at almost Rs 6,000 but Organising Committee members said that this was not an ordinary umbrella.

"A very transparent procedure was followed, the overlays, tenders were placed on the website, it was published in the newspapers, we received 10 bids out of which 4 overlayed suppliers, who have supplied these overlays to Olympics, to the Asian Games, to the Commonwealth Games, they were short listed and they participated in the commercial bids," said Lalit Bhanot, General Secretary, Organising Committee.

Inflated Cost

• Treadmills on hire @ Rs 9 lakh
• Air Conditioners on hire @ Rs 4 lakh
• Toilet paper @ Rs 3,757
• Umbrellas on hire @ Rs 6,000 per piece
  

While the OC has tried to explain that the inflated costs were due to high management charges, the fact is that even the overlays budget of about Rs 700 crore given to it by the government, will have to be repaid, and with sponsorship raising just Rs 650 crore, that may be a tall order.