(From top) Jaipal Reddy, Manmohan Singh and Suresh Kalmadi

New Delhi, Oct. 21: The Prime Minister has entrusted with a group of ministers headed by urban development minister S. Jaipal Reddy the primary responsibility of making the Commonwealth Games a success.

The move was apparently prompted by a realisation that the government could not afford to leave things to Suresh Kalmadi-led sports administrators with less than a year to go for the Games.

The group, made of Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, sports minister M.S. Gill, tourism minister Kumari Selja and Delhi lieutenant governor Tejinder Khanna will now meet every week to monitor the overall situation and take remedial steps.

Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s forceful intervention has revved up the preparations, personal rivalries and vested interests are still creating hurdles in pursuit of a successful Games.

Sources told The Telegraph that the maximum energies of the stakeholders were still being consumed in clearing the cobwebs woven by administrators belonging to both the Indian Organising Committee and the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF). This is happening despite the Prime Minister’s warning that India’s prestige was at stake.

The sources said the confrontation between Organising Committee chief Kalmadi and CGF president Mike Fennell had been brewing for long and there was more to it than mere ego clashes. The controversies surrounding Games CEO Mike Hooper’s removal and the appointment of 16 more foreign consultants are still to be resolved and sports minister Gill is now mediating between Kalmadi and Fennel. They will meet in London later this month to arrive at a decision.

The conflict with the CGF, particularly Hooper, is not restricted to Kalmadi and associates; some government officials have been claiming that Hooper had been of little help in the preparations. The criticism has become so sharp that even the rent paid for his accommodation has become a talking point among his detractors.

“He has been staying in a farm house in Delhi for three years, for which the government pays a huge rent, and creating problems for us. Nobody wants to interact with him and Kalmadi’s demand for his ouster is perfectly valid,” a government official said, declining to identify himself. Hooper could not be contacted.

The bitterness burst through the veneer recently when Hooper was physically prevented from addressing the media by Kalmadi’s aides.

Multiplicity of authorities, however, still remains a big problem. Apart from the organising committee and foreign consultants, several agencies like the Delhi government, the Union urban development ministry, the Delhi Development Authority and the Metro Rail Corporation are working on the project and there is no supreme authority to which these bodies are accountable to.

Although a CEO — Jarnail Singh, an IAS officer with considerable experience — had been appointed a few days ago, lack of co-ordination among the agencies has posed a crisis in the final stages of preparations.

For instance, the stadiums to be constructed by the Delhi government are ready but they are waiting endlessly for technical specifications: where to place electronic boards and screens and where the electrical fittings should be.

Transport, parking, accommodation, policing and roads are other concerns. The organisers wanted 500 additional buses and the Delhi government has bought them but the entire city is dug up for the Metro rail system, leaving road repair work pending.

The gateways to Delhi from the National Capital Region have to be spruced up but nothing has been worked out on this front. The Games village for athletes on the banks of the Yamuna will be ready on time but officials agree much has to be done to accommodate the visitors.

The officials claim that work was progressing at “a furious pace” and the Centre had always been ready to loosen its purse strings in completing the projects. The deadline for completing the projects has been recently extended by three months to March 2010.

If the administrators continue to create problems, the Centre may be compelled to set up an apex body with overriding powers, the sources said.

Some Congress leaders have also started talking about the need for a young politician (read Rahul Gandhi) to take charge and breathe fresh life into the Games initiative.