To give city sporting chance, DDA to closely track work at complex

New Delhi: Last month, the foundation for Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) first sports complex to be built under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) was laid by lieutenant governor VK Saxena at Dwarka sector 19-B. The land development agency is now planning to engage a consulting engineering firm for daily monitoring of the construction of this first-of-its-kind project.

The ‘Integrated Multi-Sports Arena’ is coming up on a site spread over around 51 acre and will boast of an international cricket-cum-football stadium with a minimum seating capacity of 30,000, indoor multi-sports facilities with 2,000 seating capacity, a membership-based sports club with capacity to accommodate 3,000 members.

The Rs 350 crore project will also include facilities for tennis, badminton, squash, table tennis, swimming pool etc. According to DDA officials, all sports facilities developed on the site will also be available for users on pay and play basis for a minimum of 25% of their capacity, without requiring membership of the sports club.

The area of the sports facility is going to be 6.4 lakh square feet, apart from 3.45 lakh square feet of commercial facilities . The project is being taken up by Omaxe through PPP mode on design, finance, operate and transfer model with a concession period of 30 years. The facility is expected to be completed within three years.

Apart from sports facilities, the arena will also provide commercial facilities, including retail, hotel, hospitality, commercial office space and supporting facilities for sports.

For the sports facility, the role and functions of the ‘independent engineer’ to be brought on board will be to review, inspect, and monitor construction works for the project facilities. The firm will also conduct tests on completion of construction and issue completion or provisional certificate.

During the construction period, the independent engineer will undertake a detailed review of the drawings and detailed project report to be furnished by the concessionaire, along with supporting data, including geo-technical and hydrological investigations, characteristics of materials from borrow areas and quarry sites and topographical surveys. The independent engineer will complete the review and send comments and observations to DDA.

Inspection of the construction works and the project facilities will be carried out once every month and an inspection report giving overview of the status, progress, quality and safety of construction, including the work methodology adopted, the materials used and their sources, and conformity of construction works, etc will be submitted.

Apart from Dwarka, DDA is also working on one sports complex each at Rohini and Narela under a similar PPP model. An official said that the plot identified at Rohini Sector-34 measures approximately 53.6 acres and the tentative project cost is estimated at Rs 150 crore. The plot at Narela Sector- A7 is much smaller at 18 acres and the project cost is estimated to be around Rs 57 crore.