Nigeria Content Online

Plagued by endless
corruption accusations, vast overspending claims and huge construction
delays, you would be forgiven for thinking none of Delhi’s inhabitants
were overjoyed about the city’s upcoming Commonwealth Games.

But you’d be mistaken, at least according to India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

A few weeks ago he
said that the construction sites for the Games, which kick off in just
over 24 days, were providing perfect conditions for the city’s
mosquitoes, and laying the blame for the city’s record-breaking dengue
outbreak squarely with the organising committee.

“Dengue and water
is strongly related. Delhi is already dug up because of the Games and
it is also raining heavily. Since water remains accumulated in many
places, it becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which are
contributing to diseases,” Azad told reporters.

Throwing salt in
the organisers’ wounds was his thinly veiled accusation that had the
work been completed on schedule, and the construction completed before
the monsoon weather arrived, this year’s outbreak of the deadly virus
could have been avoided.

The embarrassing issue for the much-maligned organising committee is that he may well have a point.

Across the city,
pits and troughs scattered around uncompleted Games venues have filled
with rainwater during the recent monsoon downpours, providing the
dengue-spreading Aedes mosquito with perfect breeding grounds.

This year’s count
of dengue victims in the city – currently totalling 434 – represents a
huge rise from 3 last year and 55 in 2008. But do two swallows make a
summer?

Indeed, a
spiralling dengue victim count needs a scapegoat, and what better
culprit than the Games, which is already disliked by many of the city’s
residents.

But Azad’s timing
is intriguing. Recently, his government has slowly become engulfed in
the Games’ bad publicity, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appearing
to step in, in an attempt to provide relief to Suresh Kalmadi, the
Chairman of the Organising Committee.

Whether or not his
comments are true, or indeed supported by his party, Delhi is anxious
to be rid of the outbreak before the high-profile event begins in
October.

City
administrators, who are hard at work with fogging machines to prevent
mosquito breeding in danger areas, said that week that none of their
employees would get time off until the monsoon season concludes, while
mobile vans have been laid on to rush victims to 24-hour dedicated
hospitals.

According to an
advertisement published by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, 6,125
people have been prosecuted this season for allowing water stagnation
to occur on their property.

Following Azad’s comments, perhaps prosecutors will make a visit to
Kalmadi’s office in the coming weeks. Until then, Delhi’s love-hate
relationship with the Commonwealth Games rumbles on.