Sunday, August 1, 2010

Caterers will be Finalized Before August 10

Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi has said that the decision on caterers for the venues will be taken by August 10.

On the rollercoaster ride that the selection of caterers has seen, Kalmadi tried to justify the delays pointing that they had floated the expression of Interest for caterers last year and only two companies came forward. Hoping for a better deal the tender was scrapped and a fresh tender was floated but here too only one of the two companies came forward. The job finally went to the lone bidder which is a consortium of Delaware North from Australia, Taj STATS with partner PKL for the Games Village.

On catering for the venues, Kalmadi said that tenders had been floated but those who applied were quoting very high rates with a meal costing over Rs 400. This was unacceptable and the matter was put up before the Executive Board of the OC and finally, the tender scrapped. A fresh tender was floated and now the applicants will be scrutinized and a decision taken. According to Kalmadi the process is going to be completed and the caterers selected by August 10.

On the issue of Organizing Committee severely lagging behind on generating revenue from the event Kalmadi lashed back saying that the OC had already collected Rs 700 crore. “There are four sources for revenue generation. One is sponsorships, merchandise, TV rights and ticketing. So far over 50,000 tickets have been sold. Under TV rights as against the expected 30 million dollars 50 million dollars have already come in,” Kalmadi added. Kalmadi chose to make no mention of revenue from merchandise. With just a little over two months left for the Games the merchandise is yet to be launched.

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