As the authorities in the Capital try to ready as many rooms as possible for next year’s Commonwealth Games, the National Capital Region too is preparing to throw open its doors for the expected surge of visitors.

Work is complete on 5,728 of the total 8,652 rooms, which the Haryana government had been asked to provide in the NCR.

“Over 90 per cent work in these rooms is complete. Then there are another 1,032 rooms where work is over 50 per cent complete. In all, the state would offer more than 6,000 rooms when the Games begin,” said an official spokesperson of Haryana Tourism.

Around 1,892 rooms have been categorised “doubtful” which means that work is less than 50 per cent complete and they are unlikely to be ready before the Games.

The spokesperson also informed that a special room booking portal for the Games would be launched by the Ministry of Tourism and all the completed rooms would be available for booking several months in advance.

As per the Ministry of Tourism’s estimates, around 40,000 additional rooms in the NCR region would be required for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Haryana and UP governments were given a joint target of around 11,000 rooms.

On a recent visit to the city, Union Tourism Minister Kumari Selja had said that there was some problem in target fulfillment on part of UP and the loss was being made good by Delhi and Haryana.

“Haryana could have provided more rooms,” a senior government official said. “But there was some problem due to the delay in construction of the Badarpur flyover, which affected connectivity with Faridabad. But we have still met the target given to us. The state government is also introducing a special shopping festival in Gurgaon to coincide with the Games. Planned on the lines of the Dubai Shopping Festival, the first version of the event will be held in September and would be repeated next year during the Games. All the prominent shopping malls of Gurgaon would feature in it.”

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