Indians contribute to the show of success

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Sydney: Whenever Sydney Olympics are recalled in the posterity, few aspects of these 'best-ever' Games are bound to crop up immediately. The 27th edition of Olympics have been so well managed that the future hosts would have to strive really hard to come anywhere near such newly-established standards.

A tireless army of Olympic volunteers has contributed hundreds of their hours to achieve this enviable goal. A large number of Indians, and people with origins in other sub-continent countries, are part of this largevoluntary force.

Indians, especially students, also form a major chunk of the security officials who have been recruited specially for the Olympics and Paralympics Games by Sydney's CityRail and some security agencies.

Thousands of Indian visitors to Sydney Olympics would also remember these games for getting relevant information in their own language from these volunteers and security officials.

"It is a boom time for students as they can, because of vacations, work for as many hours as they can and earn a good money while having watched the best of Olympic action at no price," says Vivek Chand an information technology student from Delhi who has been doing security official's job at Stadium Australia, the main Olympic venue.

He also expects to be engaged for the forthcoming Paralympic Games because of "good work which I have put in."

The Games volunteers' efforts have been a part of the strategy adopted by the Australian administrators who have invested years of meticulous planning to achieve the adulation which sporting world is unreservedlypiling on Sydney Olympics.

"It has been smiles and an unending series of courtesies all around during the Games," says Balwinder Bhatia, a Sydney accountant from Jalandhar,who has been volunteering at Homebush Bay Olympic Complex.

The Sydney organisers learnt few crucial lessons from the Atlanta Olympic games fiascos. Among these was the lesson to recruit a large number of volunteers and train them in their tasks.

"The volunteers have been doing their tasks in such a 'professional' manner that I have not come across even one single whingeing spectator," says Milan Mulchandani, an Information Technology student from Melbourne who has been volunteering for the last fortnight at various swimming competition venues.

"In fact, there have been some instances where spectators have 'complained' about some spectator services host volunteers being over-eager to assist,"he adds.

Sydney's beleaguered CityRail network was also bolstered by the presence of local Indian customer service personnel who participated in providinginformation to hundreds of thousands of Olympic commuters.

"Though it was hard work dealing with hundreds of queries everyday but I enjoyed every moment of this experience," says a turbaned Gurpartap Singh while working in his luminous jacket at busy Granville railway station in Sydney's south-west.

One of the major incentive for the Australian volunteer force, majority of whom are housewives and pensioners, has been multi-colored uniform. These attention-grabbing pieces of apparel have been instant hit with not only the volunteers but also the visitors.

There have been reports of visitors offering up to 7,000 Australian dollars for the whole kit. There have not been, for sentimental reasons, many sellers which has helped to inflate the prices even further up.

About 70,000 Australians had volunteered to do various crowd control, interpretation, driving tasks.

India Abroad News Service



(c) Reuters Limited.