It's a rubbery problem at CWG village

THE COMMONWEALTH Games (CWG) Village is confronting a civic problem again. 

It is not the dirty loos or spit-stained bathrooms, but choked drains, which are now causing problems.

And this time, the athletes themselves are to blame.When some toilets used by the athletes were found clogged, plumbers were called in to clean them. They found that thousands of used condoms, which had been flushed down, were clogging the system.

Related story: Use of condoms in Games Village, a positive story: Fennell

The plumbers reported this to the authorities. Since used condoms are not bio-degradable waste, they can choke the toilets.Officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi ( MCD) said the civic agency wasn't responsible for the management of the waste generated inside the Village. "We are not dealing with the garbage inside the Games Village towers. We haven't analysed the exact proportion of degradable and non-degradable garbage. It will be done after the Games," MCD's chief public relations officer Deep Mathur said.

The Delhi government has constituted 34 teams, headed by one officer each from the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Civil Service (DANICS), to monitor housekeeping and cleanliness in the towers at the Village.Each team comprises electrical, plumbing, carpeting and housekeeping experts. A protocol team, headed by a DANICS official, has also been constituted for each tower.

So, when complaints of clogged toilets came, plumbers were promptly sent for cleaning. Condoms, being supplied free at the Games Village, are in huge demand. A large condom vending machine has been installed at the Village which contains at least 4,000 contraceptive packs.Officials said more than half the condoms in the machine have already been taken out. The condoms are available at the Games Village polyclinic.

"We have installed a big condom vending machine which contains at least 4,000 contraceptives.According to reports from the Village, more than 2,000 condoms have been used so far. We will refill the machine, if need be," a health official said.

The machine at the polyclinic contains four master cartons, each of which contains 960 packets and one packet contains two condoms.

To prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases during the CWG, the National AIDS Control Organisation, the Delhi State AIDS Control Society and the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust have also installed condom vending machines at various Games venues, hotels and markets.Around 129 machines have been installed across Delhi to make condoms available round the clock. People have been hired to take care of the machines.

"The machines at the Village and other venues have been branded in sync with the CWG theme to spread the message of ' Play Safe'," an official said.

Condoms are always in demand at all residential quarters for athletes during every big international sporting event.There was a shortage of condoms in the Vancouver Winter Olympics held in February this year. Health officials there had provided one lakh free condoms to roughly 7,000 athletes and officials, but the supply ran short within four days of the start of the event.

In the Beijing Olympics Village, too, one lakh condoms were supplied, but the authorities had to replenish the stock at the start of the second week itself.In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the initial batch of 70,000 condoms vanished within days and the authorities had to order 20,000 on an emergency basis.