The Hindu : New Delhi News : Talkatora Stadium face-lift tender to be cleared today

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Monday, Nov 05, 2007
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New Delhi

Talkatora Stadium face-lift tender to be cleared today

Manisha Jha

The project to be completed by December 2009

NEW DELHI: With the 2010 Commonwealth Games drawing nearer, the New Delhi Municipal Council is expected to approve the tender for redevelopment of the Talkatora Stadium at a special meeting on Monday.

To be developed as a world class boxing venue, the ambitious Rs.104 crore stadium redevelopment project would also involve construction of a new four-storey building housing state-of-the-art facilities for players in the stadium complex in addition to up-gradation and refurbishment of the existing stadium. The project would be completed by December 2009 and the stadium will be handed over to the Commonwealth Games Federation.

An NDMC official said: “We plan to demolish the small swimming pool and construct a triangular shaped building in its place since the existing stadium building has limited scope and space for inclusion of additional facilities needed for the players and the media. The new building will house these additional facilities that could not be accommodated in the existing stadium building.”

According to an NDMC official, the new building will boast lounges, cafeteria, meeting rooms, conference rooms, change rooms and bandaging rooms for athletes in addition to doping control rooms and spacious warm up areas that athletes can avail themselves of before entering the stadium. Special emphasis would also be laid on security and parking arrangements in the stadium complex.

Said the NDMC official: “There will be separate entrances for the VIPs, players, media and spectators. Apart from surface parking, we will be building a two-level basement parking in the new building for about 300 cars. There will be a separate space allocated for VIP car parking as well.”

Contractor Simplex Projects, being the only bidder, is expected to be roped in for construction of the new building. However, the NDMC will be undertaking a separate tendering process for awarding the up-gradation and refurbishment work to another contractor.

Though the project was originally scheduled to begin earlier this year, but several procedural delays in acquiring required permissions caused the delay.

Said the official: “We had to obtain permissions from several bodies like the Sports Authority of India, Central Public Works Department, Central Empowered Committee, Supreme Court as well as from officials of the Fire Department and Forest Department which contributed to the delay. However, now after the final approval we will go ahead with the project.”

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