Farcical start to 34th National Games

It was the worst possible start for a long-delayed event as organisational chaos marred the opening day of the 34th National Games in Ranchi on Saturday.

Right from media accreditation to the information flow, everything was at its worse as the 1000-odd journalists found it extremely difficult to function at the 33-discipline event.

Such was the chaos that even drivers of the bureaucrats were distributed the official media accreditation cards, while many local and outstation journalists struggled to get theirs done.

Some were given more than one accreditation cards with names of different organisations as the Suchana Bhawan near the Governor's house resembled a ration distribution centre.

Assistant director Subhas Kujur, who was in charge of the media accreditation, appeared a harried man surrounded by the journalists and officials.

"We are really under a lot of pressure. We are forwarding all the applications that are given to us. The technical people are working overnight to prepare the cards," Kujur said.

The scene was no different at joint secretary Rajeev Bakshi's office as he kept issuing passes and vehicle permits throughout the day.

"Sab chalta hai Jharkhand mein (Everything is possible in Jharkhand)," he went on to remark, summing up the state of affairs at the 34th National Games.

The worse was in store at the media centre inside the Mega Sports Complex as journalists struggled to get any information.

For more than an hour the Games official website was "suspended" due to technical reasons. There was no information supply to the media who were clueless about the opening ceremony as a senior member of the organising committee kept on saying: "We are arranging... This the code word here."

The organisers did a good job in building a spacious media centre, but with limited chairs available many journalists had no choice but to sit on floor and file their reports.

They were equally clueless about the competition and participation details as the Games that finally got underway after six postponements and a delay of four years, had the worse possible start.