Organisers, volunteers engage in arm trap

A volunteer working at the accreditation department of Commonwealth Games at Pragati Maidan on Wednesday.u00a0PIC/IMTIYAZ KHAN

More than 4,500 volunteers had backed out alleging that the OC had betrayed them by promising money at the time of recruiting them and going back on it at the eleventh hour. The volunteers, most of them students from the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, are now being threatened by the varsity authorities that if they would not join their duty "action" would be taken against them.

The move is being seen as a last ditch bid by the organisers to garner volunteers who would be performing a range of duties during the games like acting travel and tour guides around venues and airports, working with the media units and helping out the traffic police in managing vehicle flow around the venues.

The OC had proposed to hire volunteers from private contractors after mass walk out by the students, however, they could not implement it as getting so many people to work as volunteers and getting their antecedents verified would not have been possible. Therefore, the OC asked the varsity to get tough on students to stop them from quitting, sources told MiD DAY. Out of the 31,000 volunteers, 6,125 had enrolled from the IP university alone.u00a0

"All enrolled students must attend all the training sessions and for those who remain absent from training or their concerned duties during the games necessary action would be taken against them," a university circular stated.

The students also alleged that they were being threatened at the behest of the OC.
"It (the circular) came to me and many other students as a shock. I am flooded with calls from students who have backed out of CWG earlier. I didn't expect that university would resort to such methods to get the students back for this event," said Vibhor Anand, Head Convenor, GGSIPU students' volunteers programme.

Students said though no such action has been taken so far against anybody but they are afraid that the varsity authorities might crack the whip. "If they can come out with such an order they can also target us. They are working under some pressure," said Shagun Mongia, one of the students who backed out of the programme. The nodal officer in charge, GGSIPU, Ahtesham, who was overseeing the volunteer programme, could not be contacted despite several attempts.

PROMISES UNKEPT
According to Vibhor Anand, in-charge, CWG volunteers, GGSIPU, "Initially when I was contacted for volunteers from my university, I was told that we will be paid Rs 1,000 per day. But nothing of this sort was written in the application form. Later when volunteers were short-listed they were made to sign documents where it was mentioned that there would be no payment of any kind. It was a blow to many of the students who were expecting some kind of stipend." There are about 30,000 volunteers participating from all over India who have been scanned and short listed by the Organising Committee. According to the sources, around 15,000 students are from the GGSIPU & Delhi University alone. Sources told MiD DAY that an estimated 11,000 volunteers have backed out so far.

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