Commonwealth and Corruption: Sweat and the Mud slinging

It is time that This generation, Your and Mine, lifts itself above these distractors.

Our generation does not define itself by age but by the fact that it is hopeful and it is ready to fight in the face of skepticism and hopelessness. You maybe 14 or 40 but if you believe in the cause of our nation and society and are ready to leave irresponsible commentary on our fate as a nation aside, then THIS is your generation.

The last few days have seen a lot of screaming and shouting about the commonwealth games. Most of the voices are joining in to sing the usual chorus of "corruption corruption".Let us go into a little analysis and retrospection.

THE SWEAT FOR THE STARTERS

The Commonwealth games is the biggest sporting event that our country is going to host. A lot of hard work has gone in ensuring that we are ready when the moment comes. Hosting an event of this magnitude could not be a simple job.
It starts with the government deciding on a core body to look after the event. This body in this case is the OC CWG 2010 (Organising Committee) which came into being on 10 February 2005.
This committee now has to draft the plan and get a budget approval. The budget that got approved in this case is Rs. 1620 crores..That is meagre by most standards. The budget for a 500 MW Power plant that BHEL sets up is around Rs. 2000 crores.
The members now set out to decide on the site, design and construction of the Commonwealth village.
The village needs to have sports compounds, living facilities and every other facility needed to host the biggest delegation of a CWG ever.
There's also the construction of new sport facilities and renovation of the existing facilities to host the maximum number of countries (73) and the maximum number of events (285) of any CWG ever.
There are tenders to be floated, contracts to be awarded and most importantly start of the work. The construction itself.
There are hundreds of contractors and sub contractors involved in the work which requires officials to coordinate and monitor them. This is when the committee requests more officers and expands its staff.

Besides the game, Delhi has to put up a shining face to the world for which work has been going on for last 5-6 years and which is quite evident in the city now.
One such job was the building of the Power projects for the Commonwealth which involved  NTPC's 2X490MW Dadri project. This was completed in really good time by BHEL and NTPC. I got to be a part of that project during the synchronisation activities of the first of the two units in November 2009.
While we were busy in initial synchronization, media was busy declaring that the units were in production since March 2009.That showed me that these idiots know zilch and you don't have to wait for them to put thoughts in your head.
There's Metro work going on, revamping of the international airport, induction of eco friendly CNG buses and a lot more.
All this requires an immense amount of work and I can vouch for it that a lot of government departments have been working day and night out to fulfill all this. Work has been going on in most PSU's like never before. At BHEL we haven't had even a week full of relaxation just because of the work.
This country and its people are working like never before to really show the world that the success story they have been hearing about in this last decade is not hollow, That we as a collective people are capable of presenting something grand and worth watching to the rest of the world and that this is just the beginning we are making for ourselves.
This was the story of the SWEAT that went into it.

NOW THE MUD SLINGING

The media started its smear campaign without any regard for what this self mockery will get us. We all know there's corruption in our country...so is Honor Killing,Incest, Infidelity, child molestation, rape and corruptions of various other kinds.
I have a view that corruption is not to be synonymous just with bureaucracy or Govt departments or your ticket challans or the little paid traffic policeman.
What about the corruption in our values...?

We are lucky enough to study in an engineering college but we find it fun to download and spread obscene MMS, SMS and talk obscenely about almost anything female..Thats corruption.

This country loses the so called 'cream-of-cream' of its technology people to banks and big foreign corporations...Thats corruption.

Our musicians and artists find it hard to write or compose about anything other than love and encase it smoothly in vulgar displays of lust(video remixes)..Thats corruption.

We as teenagers and youngsters find it hard to shake off the "i don't mind you don't matter" attitude in spite of the fact that a whole lot of us have little to worry about except maybe our latest hairstyle or whether that new jeans would match those converse shoes..Thats corruption

The commonwealth games is like any other Govt funded activity. Nobody knows how much money has been misappropriated or gone to someone's bank except maybe the media's "trusted sources".
So why such a hue and cry over it?

STOP THE CRY..LETS FLY..!!

It is time that This generation, Your and Mine, lifts itself above these distractors.
Our generation does not define itself by age but by the fact that it is hopeful and it is ready to fight in the face of skepticism and hopelessness. You maybe 14 or 40 but if you believe in the cause of our nation and society and are ready to leave irresponsible commentary on our fate as a nation aside, then THIS is your generation.

We have a long way to go. This is just the beginning.There'll be time when we find ourselves lost in hopelessness against all the dirt and the filthiness around. But we have to remember that its only the handful of dedicated and true people who are running this whole world in spite of everything.
All you can do is to strive to be like those handful and strengthen their hands. We need a quite revolution where each one of us resolves to be a little more understanding towards not just our own needs but others' too.We need to resolve that we will give our hearts and souls to our jobs and work and do it in the best interest of the society.
Remember, a good job well done to your own satisfaction is always a contribution to the society.
And most important of all, lets stop blabbering about the corruption that you and I can do nothing about. Lets start talking about the corruption we can do something about. I listed a few. You may know more.

Lets rise as one people and take pride in hosting the biggest ever Commonwealth Games. Lets make this our rallying point, the starting point for a long and hard marathon.