Sports Authority of India (SAI) is in a fix. Various national sports federations, who have offices in the Nehru Stadium premises — where renovation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games has already started—are yet to vacate. The SAI had set a November 30 deadline, but nobody has paid heed to that, it seems.Even the SAI office at Nehru Stadium is yet to shifted to another venue.Currently, renovation of the seating arrangement is on, bringing to a halt all sporting activity within the main arena.The issue of vacating the Stadium has become a big debate, with federations demanding alternative accommodation, but the SAI is reluctant to play along. “The SAI (read government) should provide an alternative venue to run the offices of the federations,” said Indian Olympic Association secretary Randhir Singh.His argument was based on the fact that for better coordination, offices of the different federations and SAI need to be on the same premises. “After the 1982 Asian Games, it was with this view that the government allotted office space to various federations at the Nehru Stadium,” he added.It was not clear what the SAI wants to do about this imbroglio. Repeated efforts by this daily to contact Ratan P Wattal, Director General of SAI, failed. “He is busy in a meeting,” is the response from his office.Though the IOA has its own set-up (Olympic Bhawan), most other federations haven’t made any headway in that direction. “We haven’t made any arrangement yet, but will shift when the time comes,” said Balbir Singh Bhatia, secretary of the Weightlifting Federation of India.
