By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

May 3 - New Delhi has made significant progress towards being ready to host this year's Commonwealth Games, Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the organising committee, promised a group of inspectors as they began their latest visit to the Indian capital today.



Kalmadi, who is also President of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), made his pledge when he addressed the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) Coordination Commission (CoCom) as they arrived for their latest visit to Delhi to see how preparations are progressing for the Games, which are due to open on October 3.

Kalmadi said: "A lot of progress has taken place since the previous CoCom visit.

"The city of Delhi will be ahead by 10 years in terms of modern state of the art infrastructure and stadiums.

“I am thankful for all the support and guidance that CoCom has extended to our team and their pledge to continue to support the organising committee in successful organisation of Delhi Games."

Kalmadi claimed that India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was now personally overseeing the preparations, which have been criticised for being too slow.

Sindhushree Khullar, the Secretary of India's Ministry of Sports, promised the Coordination Commission that everything was being done to make sure that the Games were a triumph.

He said: "We are taking all steps to ensure success of the Games.

"The Group of Ministers (GoM) has unanimously supported the OC (organising committee) chairman in his efforts to make this event the best."

Austin Sealy, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from Barbados, who is the chairman of the Coordination Commission praised the efforts of Kalmadi and local officials since his team's last visit in December.

He said: "I have toured the venues including the main press centre and broadcasting centre and found them good."

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