Commonwealth Games tickets will be hard to fake

Tickets to the Commonwealth Games that you buy from August 25 onwards will have all the hallmarks of the Indian rupee note. Specially designed to make counterfeits impossible, the tickets, like the rupee, have been printed on the same paper with a corresponding watermark and security thread that runs through it. To make copying tougher, the tickets have been printed at the same press in Nashik as the rupee bank notes, said organising committee (OC) sources.

According to OC officials, one of the problems that plagued the Beijing Olympics was the presence of fake tickets. In fact, thousands had been duped by a fake ticket website scam — a situation that OC officials said they did not want replicated in the CWG.

A senior OC official said: "Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies are the most in demand, followed by events like hockey, athletics and gymnastics. The possibility that fake tickets will flood the market just before the Games was high. So, we wanted to ensure that the tickets sold by the OC were distinct, easily identifiable and impossible to copy."

Not surprisingly, printing of the tickets at the Nashik press was also delayed. As a result, sale of tickets was postponed to August 25 from August 1. Sources claimed that the ticket, in which the new symbol of the rupee was to be inducted, took time to be printed as the font was not yet available from the government.
However, the tickets are going on sale from August 25, with the OC throwing open retail outlets across the city. In the third phase, people will be able to buy tickets from the venues itself. Till now, tickets were available only on the OC website.

The rapid sale of tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies has contributed to 25% of the total sales so far, said OC officials. Among the sporting events, hockey is the front-runner, accounting for 14% of the tickets sold till date, followed by athletics at 11% and gymnastics at 10%. Swimming is at the fourth spot with a 8% share of the sales, said OC officials.

OC officials admitted that sale was slow, though the opening of retail outlets were expected to push up the figures. They, however, were confident of selling the entire stock of 17 lakh tickets ahead of the Games. At the retail outlets, direct purchases can be made and those holding vouchers can also procure actual tickets there.

Commonwealth Games tickets flying fast

The cash registers started ringing since Friday when the Commonwealth Games tickets were officially launched but over the next two days, they appeared to be on fire.

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Commonwealth Games Organizing committee has collected over Rs 10,000,000 so far via sales of tickets. Around 10,000 tickets were sold, including those for the Opening and Closing ceremonies.

Tickets to the opening ceremony at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, which will feature big Bollywood stars, in what has been promoted as a spectacular event, are flying off the shelves.

"What we have realised from talking to people in Delhi is that everyone wants to watch at least one Commonwealth Games event,” said Lalit Bhanot, Secretary General, Organising Committee.

The organisers expect to sell around 1.7 million tickets in all, with expected earnings hovering around the Rs 60 crore figure.

After the ceremonies, hockey, athletics, swimming and tennis and squash are raking in the moolah the most.

Hockey was expected to be popular, and swimming also has a fan following.

“If Usain Bolt (Jamaican; world’s fastest athlete) confirms participation, athletics will get more crowd,” said a senior organising committee official.

Retail points like Central Bank of India branches and Hero Honda outlets are doing brisk business. Availability will increase once bulk group booking starts in August.

Around 60 per cent of the sales are sold online, and the rest are from retail outlets.

Indian Rail Catering and Tour Company (IRCTC) has been appointed as the official ticketing agency for CWG 2010 in consortium with Broad Vision Systems and TicketPro.

IRCTC will provide tickets through the Internet, call centres and a network of retail outlets.

Each ticket holder can travel free of charge by Delhi Metro trains and DTC buses to reach and return from the venue on the day of the event for which they hold a ticket.

Delhi Metro's Inderlok-Mundka line inaugurated

Delhi Metro's fifth line, the Inderlok-Mundka corridor, was inaugurated by Union Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit here today.

The line had earlier received the statutory safety clearances from the Commissioner for Metro Railway Safety, Mr R K Kardam, who had inspected it for two days on March 29 and 30.

The 15.15 km line is India's first standard gauge (4 ft 8.5 inches) Metro line and it will be opened to the public from 0600 hours tomorrow.

The line has 14 elevated stations: Inderlok, Ashok Park Main, Punjabi Bagh East, Shivaji Park, Madipur, Paschim Vihar East, Paschim Vihar West, Peera Garhi, Udyog Nagar, Surajmal Stadium, Nangloi, Nangloi Railway station, Rajdhani Park and Mundka.

Over one lakh commuters are expected to use the line everyday, a spokesman for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said.

Work on the first phase of the Delhi Metro project began on October 1, 1998. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dedicated Phase I to the nation on December 30, 2005, two years and nine months ahead of schedule. Subsequently, two extensions (Indraprastha-Barakhamba Road and Dwarka sub-city) were also added.

Phase I of the Delhi Metro network consists of 65.1 km. This comprises Line-1: Shahdara – Rithala (22 km); Line-2: Vishwa Vidyalaya – Central Secretariat (11 km) and Line-3: Indraprastha – Dwarka Sec.9 (32.1 km).

Work on Phase II of the Delhi Metro project began in 2006. The second phase, to be completed before the Commonwealth Games are held in New Delhi in October 2010, will add about 125 km to the network and bring the satellite townships of Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad into the Metro map. DMRC has already opened 46 kms of the sections of Phase-II covering Noida as well.

With the commissioning of the Inderlok-Mundka line, the Metro network has increased to over 111 kms and 97 stations.

According to the spokesman, the facilities available at the stations on the new line opened today include smarter automatic fare colelction (AFC) gates, which will allow faster passage for commuters and improve passenger management. These gates will also have a provision for return of tokens from the AFC gates.

The new system will come in handy for passengers who have been provided with invalid tokens as invalid tokens will be returned through a token return cup whereas valid tokens will remain captured and access provided to the passenger.

In case of an invalid token, the passenger can retrieve it and hand it to the operator for appropriate action at the customer care centre. The current lot of automatic fare collection (AFC) gates does not have this provision.

A total of 91 AFC Gates will be provided on this line comprising of 33 Entry, 44 Exit and 14 Disabled Friendly AFC Gates.

As many as 84 lifts and escalators (42 each) are installed to provide easy access to senior citizens, physically handicapped people and others to reach from ground to concourse level and further from concourse level to platform level.

The Ticket Office Machines (TOM) for this line will have touch screens. Touch screen interface provides ease of operation for the TOM operator, thus improving passenger handling. A reader is installed inside the TOM, which will reduce the manual operation in case of a token problem. This will help in reduction of waiting time at the ticket window. A total of 39 such TOMs will be available on the stations of this line.

There will be two customer care centres at each of the stations on the line. Toilets have been provided at all the stations in the unpaid area. Parking is available at 10 of the 14 stations on this line, the spokesman added.

Initially, ten trains will run on this line with a peak hour frequency of 6 minutes, which will be subsequently increased, if need be, keeping in mind the ridership pattern. One extra train will be kept as standby for emergency use. The time taken to travel from one end to the other end of line will be 29 minutes.

Online ticket sales for Commonwealth Games to begin in May

The sale of tickets for Commonwealth Games 2010 will open in May and will be available on the internet. So you don’t need to suffer the tedium of standing in queues. A comprehensive website will let you study availability, rates, events and venues at leisure before making a choice.

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The website is expected to be up on an experimental basis by April and sources said it may be fully functional by the end of the month itself. The Commonwealth Games organizing committee (OC) has begun accepting requests of foreign associations looking to block tickets but is confident that with 1.7 million tickets to go around, there is more than enough for everyone.

Would you spend more on an athletics event or concentrate on football and rowing? The OC ticketing web link can help you map out your Games experience along with the logistics or venues and travel.

Tickets purchased over the Net will have to be exchanged for those issued by the OC through designated counters. The committee plans to open several outlets so that all that needs to be done will be to visit a counter and exchange the e-receipts for actual tickets. The data system would have registered the issued tickets and the system is expected to have in built checks to prevent fraud.

The pricing of tickets is expected to be ‘‘affordable’’ with the costliest at Rs 1,000 (around $ 22 USD) and the cheaper ones in the Rs 100-200  (between $ 2.5 to $5 USD) range. ‘‘We have to keep in mind the paying capacity of the public as also the need to encourage spectators. Hopefully, the world class events will bring in the crowds and also inculcate a taste for sports,’’ said sources.

The ticket message that the OC wants to convey is book early so that you don’t have to face last-minute rush. The committee wants to tap a maximum number of people and so tickets are being offered even before some of the venues will be in state of readiness. "We will start the ticket sales programme so that agents and outlets are finalized. The venues are operating on a different schedule and are expected to be ready on time for the Games." said an official.

The OC is doing its best to ensure that tickets are not available through unauthorized sources, all the more so as sales are expected to be an important source of revenue. The good news is that not all events will be ticketed. Some, like cycling and marathon, will be free entries and are scheduled to be held at India Gate-Central Vista and the Greater Noida Expressway.

Commonwealth Games to break-even financially

Government of India has given projections for 2010 Commonwealth Games.

According to a release, Commonwealth Games will generate Rs 1708 crore, which is Rs 88 crore more than the government has budgeted for the conduct of the multi-discipline event.

Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Pratik Prakashbapu Patil said in the parliament today that the government has enhanced the budget for the October 3-14 Games from Rs 767 crore to Rs 1620 crore.

"The Organising Committee has estimated that it would generate revenue of around Rs 1708 crore from international/domestic broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing, licensed merchandise, donations etc," the Minister told in his reply to a written question.

Explaining the decision to raise the allocation, Patil said, the additional funds are likely to be spent by the Organising Committee on accreditation, city operations, sponsorships and TV rights, security, accommodation, catering, opening and closing ceremonies, protocol and Queens Baton Relay.

2010 Commonwealth Games funding doubled

India on Thursday more than doubled the budget for the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi saying more money was needed for security as well as a successful delivery of the event. Till now, there has been widespread criticism of the delay by Indian organizers in creating infrastructure and facilities for the Games scheduled for October 2010.



The cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved a revised budget of 1620 crores (344 million dollars), more than a two-fold increase from the previously sanctioned 7.67 billion rupees (163 million dollars). This makes 2010 Commonwealth Games the most expensive Games ever.

The budgetary hike was to meet escalating costs, particularly of the opening and closing ceremonies of the games as well as the increase in the number of days for the Queen's Baton Relay.

The relay has been increased from its original plan of 136 to 240 days for international leg, and from 60 to 100 days within India.

"Inclusion of new items that are essential for the successful delivery of the Games but were not provided in the initial budget of the organizing committee, namely accreditation, city operations, sponsorship and TV rights, security, sustainability and environment and ticketing," she said.

The Commonwealth Games are world's third largest sporting spectacle after Olympics and Football world cup, and have 71 participating nations. They will be held in New Delhi from October 3-14, 2010.

Metro to extend hours & service during 2010 Games

Delhi Metro could run past midnight during the 2010 Commonwealth Games for the convenience of visitors. As of now, most of the lines run last services around 11 p.m deadline.

"We are in discussions with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and have recommended they keep their services running past midnight," Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta said.

The move, Mehta said, was in tune with the decision to extend timings for markets and malls in the national capital, which mostly close by 9 or 10 p.m.

The Delhi Metro, which is rapidly becoming the lifeline of the capital, is set to expand from 75 km to 200 km by opening six new lines on its Phase II by October 2010.

Sportspersons as well as spectators will also find the going easy - since 10 of the 11 Games venues will have easy Metro connectivity.

The Metro is already well connected to the various tourist attractions like India Gate, the Connaught Place market from the British era, and the buzzing markets in the old city at Chawri Bazaar. With the new lines many open markets like Lajpat Nagar and malls in the national capital will also be on the network.

"The smart card can be used for travelling in both the Metro and buses. The buses will have automated ticketing machines and fare will be deducted by punching of the smart card," he said.

With the completion of Phase II, the Metro ridership is expected to go up to 2.5 million daily from the 950,000 average now.

By next year, passengers can use the high speed Metro Airport Express Line. Travellers will be able to get their boarding passes for their flights at the NH-8, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Dwarka sector 21 and the Dhaula Kuan Metro stations. Metro trains on this line will run at a speed of 135 kmph and cover the 21-km distance from New Delhi to the airport in 18 minutes.