Commonwealth mess! - Nothing Uncommon

India is hosting the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in less than a week from now but we are not short of criticisms about the preparations for the games. In the past one week, there had been complaints of uncleanliness, security risks, poor quality constructions and an uninhabitable athletes village (and not to mention the allegations of fraud and corruption throughout this preparation).

While all this comes as a shame on the face of every Indian, it does not come as a surprise. On almost every civil program, the Govt. of India has repeatedly failed to deliver or has fallen short of what was promised. And when such a failure occurs, the blame game starts - blame on politicians, blame on bureaucrats, blame on diplomats, blame each other, blame on weather and what not. The bottom line is that no one takes responsibility - and yes it is right that no one could be held accountable because every one acts on their own and the whole structure misses a central governing body which would oversee and take complete responsibility for complex projects like these. Well, the Organizing Committee (OC) of CWG was one such body but when the OC fails to act responsibly and sincerely, someone has to step in to take the OC in hand and keep the ball rolling. But when the "5-years-in-office" politicians are given responsibilities to supervise, everything gets out-of-track from the real objective, as the period (and opportunity) of work is seen in the eyes of "5-years". And in addition to that, India's traditional system of giving power and authority to persons based on influence, connections and seniority rather than skill, performance and merit is completely out of sync with the objective of India - to be an economic super power in the 21st century.

This CWG might have resulted in embarrassment for many Indians but this is a right lesson at the right time for India and Indians. The lessons have to be learnt - the lesson that government is not exempt from the 21st century business principles, the lesson that everyone needs to be accountable to his/her actions, the lesson that government still lacks the skills, resources and experience it needs to do complex projects, the lesson that corruption could not be seen as an everyday expense to the people and an everyday revenue to politicians / bureaucrats / govt.workers (and the list goes on) and the lesson that it is time India acknowledges its shortcomings and lack of experience in certain key sectors.

As an open democratic society, it is time that India acknowledges its weaknesses openly and moves forward with steps to rectify it. Few months back, when I watched an influential Central government minister complain about the outdated laws of the country in a TV channel, I could only laugh - if he complains, what should the people do? If India has to efficiently use its scarce resources, it is time to bring in a new era of work culture in the government and form new independent autonomous bodies, free from political influence, filled with eminent persons, who could oversee complex projects that India is planning to do in the next decade and more and who could be held accountable - accountable to the parliament, judiciary and to the people. Otherwise, there would be an era of wastage of billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money through inefficient but complex government programs.