Deadlines were made to be broken for Delhi 2010 organisers

DOUGLAS Adams - the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - might have been a good recruit for the embattled organisers of October's Commonwealth Games. "I love deadlines," he once said. "I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

SLOW PROGRESS: A general view of the Games village built for the Commonwealth Games 2010 in New Delhi - taken six days ago (Reuters)

And if you wanted proof that nothing brings on inspiration more than desperation, here comes the latest dispatch from Delhi.

After initially setting a deadline of August 1st to complete all venues for the Games - which, in itself, was an extension of another previous deadline, they then revised that date until the end of the month.

However, Jaipal Reddy, the unfortunate head of the group of ministers overseeing an organising committee that has lurched from crisis to crisis, admits the target will be missed again.

You have to feel sorry for Mr Reddy, who must wonder what he has done wrong to be responsible for a series of construction sites that don't do justice to his ironic surname.

"The schedule is not met strictly," he said, showing only a politician's flair for what Alan Clarke once described as being 'economical with the actualité'.

"It is being delayed by a couple of days because of rain also and because of delay in delivery of containers.

"There will be a delay by a couple of days and not more than that."

Reddy has also moved to play down fears of a dengue fever outbreak in Delhi, which has so far claimed two lives.

I remember a similar outbreak before the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur - and similar assurances from the powers that be.

I also remembering laying in my hotel with the thermometer flying higher than an Indian weightlifter.

37 days to go...

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