Commonwealth games helps project image of India, says Lalit Bhanot

New Delhi (ANI): Reacting to the amount of money spent for organising the Commonwealth Games, Lalit Bhanot, Secretary General of Commonwealth Games Organising Committee said that the projection of the country before the world is far more important.

Talking to reporters here, Bhanot said: "As for the spending money is concerned, if you do all these big events, money is required to be spent. Since the opening ceremony will be watched by three billion people worldwide, I think projecting image of India is more important, we are doing that."

Bhanot further spoke about the details of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which is the venue for the opening ceremony.

"We have about 970 entries for the athletes which is bigger than last Commonwealth Games and I was just discussing it with my competition manager Mr. Walson who told me that even the entry in 100 metres is very good and it is going to be a very good race in terms of performance, in terms of numbers and we have seen athletes of very high calibre who are the world champions. So one can see the world level competition in athletics here," said Bhanot.

He also opined that rainfall would not affect the opening ceremony by citing several similar events too experienced downpour elsewhere in the world sans marring the scheduled programmes.

"If you remember even the Seoul 1986 Asian Games, even the Olympic Games it was raining, we have seen that as we had participated in that. Even Doha 2006 it never rains around the year but it rained on the opening ceremony, they continued with it, so it will continue," he said.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 will be held from 3 to 14 October in New Delhi.

The 12-day sporting extravaganza will be India's biggest sporting event since the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi.