Food turns nemesis for Games, CM intervenes to check quality

Guwahati, Feb 11(UNI) Food, which was supposed to be one of the USP of the 33rd National Games along with the infrastructure, has now turned into the biggest nemesis for host Asom.

The complaints of bad food all over the stadium complexes has hurt the image of the organisers so much that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had to intervene to redeem prestige.

Barring the Games village, where exotic and five star food is b eing served by hundreds of chefs, the lunch packets distributed to the athletes, team officials, technical officials as well as other organising committee members were of so poor quality that many actually vomitted while hundreds dumped the packets in the dustbins.

''This is extremely bad food and perhaps packed overnight or recycled,'' said Abinash Kumar from Maharashtra. His sentiment has been echoed by almost everyone in the vicinity of the Sarusajai sporting complex.

The situation is no better in the other stadium complexes like Tepesia and Amingaon. ''Everywhere the food is horrible. I believe someone is making lot of money,'' said Pranab Joshi in the Tarun Ram Phookan Indoor Stadium.

Highly embarrassed, the Chief Minister yesterday personally inspected some of the food facilities and asked the official to find out the source of the fault.

''After the grand success of the opening ceremony, we can not be let down by the poor quality of food,'' said a member of the Organising committee determined to correct the position.

However, there has been no such complaint from the Games village, which has been churning out numerous delicacies to cater the need of the athletes from Punjab to Kerala and from Gujarat to Nagaland.

There are also several complaints of lack of medical facilities and transport facilities in the stadiums besides the usual delays in almost all the sporting arenas because of non-readiness of infrastructure.

UNI