CWG OC mum on criteria for selecting 166 people for Beijing tour

New Delhi: The CWG Organising Committee seems to be reluctant to disclose the criteria for selecting the 166 people who went on a 2008 tour, which is under CWG scanner, to study Beijing Olympics for the Delhi games preparations.

Replying to an RTI reply, the Committee provided the list, mandate and other details of the contingent which went to China in August 2008 on a trip that had cost Rs 8.5 crore but shied away from making public notings of the reasons for choosing the group.

The trip has come under scrutiny of Comptroller and Auditor General.

The list of high-profile members included R K Anand, Jagdish Tytler, Chetan Chauhan, Amar Singh, Sachin Pilot, Nafisa Ali and Arti Mehra.

The RTI reply provided to Subhash Agrawal says that the delegation went to Beijing to gain experience and implement that in the conduct of Commonwealth Games which were held in October last year.

"A team of OC observers in two groups drawn from the Organising Committee Commonwealth games Delhi 2010, Indian Olympic Association, Sports Authority of India, Delhi Government, DDA and various sports federations were sent to Beijing during Olympic Games to observe the actual conduct of the Games and learn its intricacies," the minutes show.

"There must be some reasoning how a 166-member delegation was to be selected from a country with population of more than one billion," Agrawal said.