New Delhi, July 27
After missing several deadlines and seeing the budget shoot through the roof, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the most important venue of the Commonwealth Games (CWG), was today inaugurated by MS Gill, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs.

The stadium was one of the most important projects of the ministry as it will host the opening and closing ceremonies on October 3 and 14 besides the athletic events and has been completed at a whopping cost of over Rs 960 crore. The stadium has a sitting capacity of 60,000 spectators.

MS Gill, while inaugurating the stadium, said that it is the most magnificent stadium ever built in India in terms of design, architecture and engineering. “The stadium has been converted into almost a new one with the help of advance engineering and foreign consultants. The old stadium was around 30 years old and it took lot of collective efforts from all of us to give it this amazing shape. We had been waiting for this day,” said Gill.

The stadium unquestionably looks a state-of-the-art work but a lot of peripheral work is still going on. Sources said among other things the drainage system is not complete, something which has caused havoc at a couple of CWG sport venues.

However, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that the leakage, if any, would be corrected by August 30. “The sports ministry worked as a locomotive to get the stadium done at the scheduled time. There might be shortcomings or some work still left in parts of the stadiums but everything will get in place by August 30 or September first week,” she said.

Talking about the opening and closing ceremonies, the minister said that these are going to be spectacular events. The stadium has a 150m long air-conditioned underground tunnel that would be used by the performers during the ceremonies.