New Delhi, July 24
With just 70 days to go for the Commonwealth Games, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today pressed the panic button. Hire more labour and work through the night, directed Dikshit today at a meeting of the various agencies struggling to get their act together.

She has already exhorted engineers in the Public Works Department, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi etc. to rise to the occassion and ensure that all construction work be completed by the end of August. Permission from the police has been secured for allowing work through the night, she said while pointing out that it might actually help speed up work because ‘there would be little or no traffic on the roads’.

While reaction of engineers is not known, although they have been promised by Dikshit a month’s salary as reward if they deliver on schedule, most observers believe it would require a miracle to meet the deadline.

Opposition BJP, meanwhile, took another swipe at the government, accusing it of spending staggering sums of money on the Games, wasting a lot of it and flouting financial regulations. Alleging that the cost of hosting the Games had shot up by a whopping 1,500 per cent, BJP General Secretary Vijay Goel maintained that it was an alarming situation that called for the Prime Minister’s intervention.

Goel claimed that the Commonwealth Games is costing the country 18 times more money than what Australia had spent while hosting the Games in Melbourne four years ago. And yet, he said, “ the successful start and completion of the Games seems to be a far cry...we are moving very slowly and that too in a slipshod manner.”

The CM, however, put up a brave face and directed that all construction be completed by August 31 and all ‘construction waste be removed by August 10’ (sic).