If India's bumbling sports administrators do anything consistently, it must be racing against the clock. After being postponed twice-once because they would have been held too soon after last year's edition-the 2002 National Games will finally open in Hyderabad on December 13. In a predictable prelude, organisers are haring around trying to get their act together for what Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu billed as a sporting extravaganza even larger than the Olympics.

Going by the numbers trotted out, Naidu could even have a point. Officials say 5,887 athletes in 31 disciplines-including roller-skating, introduced at Naidu's behest-will take part in the Games distributed between Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam. The state has spent Rs 184 crore, including a loan of Rs 150 crore from hudco for the creation of massive infrastructure, import of state-of-the-art sporting equipment and upgradation of existing facilities.

The National Games-an annual Olympics-style multi-disciplinary meet revived in 1985 and reinvented in its current big-money incarnation from 1994-were set up to reactivate state Olympic associations and generate funds for the Indian Olympic Association. It is now Andhra's turn. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee will be present at the opening and closing ceremonies featuring laser shows, fireworks and entertainment from movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. This entire shindig is estimated to cost a mindboggling Rs 250 crore.

Naidu (left) and Kalmadi

The longest lap: The Rs 20 crore main athletic stadium is still seeing pre-Games action

TEETHING TROUBLES

The twice-postponed Games are badly timed. Athletes have been denied a year-end break. Andhra Pradesh has used cash incentives to "import" star athletes from other states. Hockey will be played on a worn-out astro turf.

The Rs 8.87-crore Saroornagar stadium (above); the pool cost Rs 9.71 crore

OLD WHITE ELEPHANTS

Asian Games venues, Delhi: It recently cost close to Rs 25 crore to renovate the 1982 Games venues. Balewadi, Maharashtra: A Rs 150-crore complex outside Pune is no longer fully utilised. Sree Kanteerva, Bangalore: A Rs 19-crore indoor stadium is now used for public functions.

What is worse is that the returns from this hefty payout are at best uncertain: after 10 days of sporting competition all that the state will be left with-other than, hopefully, some pleasant memories-are stadia that will require at least Rs 15 lakh a month and a minimum staff of 100 to maintain. To add sporting insult to financial injury, these Games are of no benefit to athletes either. They are badly timed at the fag end of the sporting season, with athletes denied a year-end break. Nor are the Games a handy warm-up for a major event in the coming year.

The attitude of athletes and sports officials indicates just how seriously they take these Games. Indian Hockey Federation President K.P.S. Gill was at first reluctant to allow the different state units from taking part because the Games did not fit into the national hockey calendar. Lobbying has led to a compromised competition featuring only eight teams each in the men's and women's sections. Besides, the astro turf at the Police Hockey Stadium, laid in 1986, is also in a state of disrepair.

But the hoopla and last-minute activity have continued unabated. The National Games flame was lit by Naidu himself on November 30 in remote Srikakulam-home district of Karnam Malleswari, India's only woman Olympic medallist. A team of 70 on roller-skates carried the flame for 10 days over 1,312 km to Hyderabad.

When it is all over on December 23 what will remain are white elephants that have come to symbolise Indian sport following the Asian Games of 1982. Once the Games are done, the onus would be on the state to take care of the high-cost, high-maintenance venues and their expensive equipment. The main athletic stadium, named after the late Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi, has cost Rs 20.3 crore. Other major expenses include: the air-conditioned indoor stadium (Rs 11.26 crore), the swimming pool (Rs 9.71 crore), the shooting range (Rs 5 crore), the Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium at Yousufguda (Rs 9.12 crore) and the indoor stadium at Saroornagar (Rs 8.87 crore). Added to this list is a Rs 12.4 crore bill for development work done at the Balayogi Stadium.

The experience from the earlier Games shows that states spend huge sums to develop the infrastructure in one or more cities but fail to use them fruitfully. Delhi's monoliths from the 1982 Asian Games and three National Games hosts from the 1990s-Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur-have found themselves strapped for cash; the first casualty is always the infrastructure (see box).

As the opening of the Games drew nearer, Naidu made the boastful claim that Andhra Pradesh would win the largest number of medals. In order to boost their medal tally, sports associations in the state have "imported" accomplished sportspersons who will put in one-time appearances for Andhra Pradesh and sweep the medals. They include tennis players like Manisha Malhotra, ace shooter Anjali Vedpathak from Maharashtra, judokas from the Central Industrial Security Force and Central Reserve Police Force, fencers and archers from Manipur, and canoeists and kayakers from Kerala. This when the Games rules say that athletes must have lived in the state they represent for the past six months.

The state Government has announced hefty cash awards to lure these potential medal-winners. A gold medal fetches Rs 3 lakh, a silver Rs 2 lakh and a bronze Rs 1 lakh. The first such reward went to S. Pavani who finished first out of seven in the 20-km walk in the National Walking Championships, held in Pune last week but considered part of the National Games.

Andhra may get all the medals Naidu dreams of but the larger questions remain. Is it justifiable for all states to have international-class facilities which they cannot possibly maintain? Isn't it like small towns asking for international airports when it is their roads and highways that require attention? Says L.V. Subrahmanyam, vice-chairman and md, Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh: "We will enlarge the scope of our sports schools to tap more talent and train them in using international-class facilities."

For the moment, it is for Naidu to prove that his state's National Games, with its mascot, Veera the bull, can break a tradition and pull Indian sports out of the age of the bullock cart.