`CWG-like scam in National Games-2014`

Panaji: Five-star hotels and niche hospitality projects were being surreptitiously brought in, under the guise infrastructure- creation for the 2014 National Games in Goa, legislators across the spectrum alleged on Monday. Speaker Pratapsing Rane was forced to adjourn the budget session of the state assemb ly after a heated debate on infrastructure creation for the National Games turned unruly.

“Why is the government supporting five-star hotels in PPP (public private partnership) mode, when private investors are ready to invest their own money in hotels projects in Goa,” Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked, alleging a multi-crore scam in the infrastructure creation. International food courts, five-star hotels, sports bars, club facilities, fine dining facilities and spas are part of the infrastructure the sports department has planned to construct in PPP mode at various centres throughout the state for the Games. A legislator of the ruling Congress also frowned on this. “Five-star hotels, seven-star hotel, fine-dining facilities… What do these things have to do with the National Games? Never in India have athletes and officials who come for the National Games been put up in five-star facilities. For whom are you building this infrastructure,” asked Congress legislator Dayanand Narvekar, a former deputy chief minister. “If the tourism ministry had built hotels I could have still understood. But why is the sports department building this kind of hospitality infrastructure,” wondered the BJP`s Laxmikant Parsenkar. The state government and the central government have allocated Rs.550 crore for creating infrastructure and upgrading exisiting facilities for the Games.IANS