The underprivileged have been at the receiving end of minimum wages and sub standard conditions since India won the bidding war to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Shankar’s name will still go down in history and the government will be able to sweep everything under the carpet, but what about the 100,000 other workers who are toiling every second as the Games knocks on Delhi’s door?

Studies by the Commonwealth Games: Citizens for Workers, Women and Children (CWG-CWC) and People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) bear witness to the pervasive abuse of the legal rights of the workers.

The studies have shown that contractors employ the poorest of the migrant workers over local workers to save themselves from the workers claiming their lawful rights.

The labour camps are bedraggled and the workers and their families are surviving in makeshift shanties. Some of them are crammed in dormitories. An average of 114 workers uses a single toilet, which lacks drainage and is home to flies, rats, snakes and mosquitoes.

It would cost the organisers of the Games less than one percent of the total project cost to provide decent facilities

But, the neither the officials nor the contractors are willing to invest.

The study by PUDR and CWG-CWC has also shown palpable breach of the law at work-sites. Safety equipments like helmets, masks, etc are not provided to the labourers.

Workers are not even being given the minimum wages as stated under the legal rights. The least amount to be paid to a labourer per day is Rs 151 (£2.09), but they are being paid an average of Rs 114 (£1.58).

The Delhi government has been provided with huge sums of money for the benefit of the labourers involved with the Commonwealth Games, but officials seem to be exploiting them.

While issues are being raised about beef being served to guests, teaching good manners to drivers and transport authorities, beautification of roads, etc, no concern is being showed to the mistreatment of the labourers.