Before the lockdown,the mad scramble

Along with frantic plantation being done all around to give the Village a green cover,there is the distressing sight of tall eucalyptuses being felled along a boundary wall — they pose an obstruction for the Village helipad.

Contrary to reports,a major portion of the training arena has been handed over to the Organising Committee. The tracks are ready,as are the wrestling and weightlifting practice venues,impressive with their maple wood flooring and acoustic partitions.

The OC’s uniformed housekeeping staff are busy polishing railings,arranging desks and tables. Milling around with the workforce and labourers are groups of children,whom some DDA staffers have brought along for a final Village tour before the security cover is put in place on September 10.

The wow factor has to be the Olympic-size practice pool and the smaller “lazy pool” under an attractive tensile roof cover. Musical fountains dot the area,which will house a mini-market and food kiosks. Surely,this is going to the most popular spot for the visiting athletes.

The kitchen and dining areas are almost completely prefabricated. Though most of the equipment and overlays are in place,hundreds of people are bustling around,including the CWG volunteers being briefed in the workforce dining hall. “Everything is in control,” says a contractor of UK’s GL Events,the firm that is supplying the overlays. “Except the mosquitoes.”

Inside the kitchen and dining halls,the logistical challenge of dishing out 36,000 meals a day has begun to set in. An official from Delaware North Companies,which has set up the Village kitchen,rattles off the figures — 140 chefs,a dish washer which can handle 200 dishes an hour,the cold storage area that covers 1,000 sq m and so on. He then takes us around a maze of shiny steel cooking ranges,deep friers,ovens,tilting pans,toasters and refrigerators,a majority of which he admits were also used for the Melbourne Games. The kitchen and dining sections are separated by a wide fire corridor and has a 2.5-lakh litre water tank.

The sense of urgency,even panic,is most evident in the residential section,where 1,168 apartments have been constructed for 8,000 athletes and officials. On a day when Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna arrived for yet another surprise visit,the DDA handed over 20 of the 34 residential towers to the OC. In the remaining towers,furnishing and finishing was still in progress. Last week,a large contingent from the OC stayed overnight at the flats,to ‘test’ the facilities. The ITDC was tasked with doing up the interiors of the flats,and clearly they could have done a better job,for instance,with the furnishings.