M T Lalwani, Additional CEO of the company, said the labourers left despite of all attempts to stop them. “Police visited the site and spoke to them. Besides, we asked private security guards to accompany them at all times. Yet, the last two weeks have seen about 400 out of 1,900 skilled labourers leave. All were expert fitters, carpenters, plumbers and fabricators - categories we don’t get in Maharashtra,” he said.

On Monday, the company raised the issue at the meeting of CYG committee members headed by Divisional Commissioner Nitin Kareer. “We have taken a review of CYG preparations. As of now there is no problem. We have labourers working across multiple sites. So our contractor has managed to rearrange the labourers from other sites for completing the construction for CYG before the deadline,” Kareer said.

According to Lalwani, there is a problem though. “We have sent our teams last week to Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal for hiring new skilled labourers as replacement. Now we’ll need about 600 labourers for getting the work done in time”, he said.

When asked if it would raise the cost of construction, Lalwani said: “We are not worried about money. Construction of eight buildings is on the verge of completion. But there are 11 more buildings under construction, to complete which we urgently need skilled manpower. Otherwise it is difficult to meet the deadline.”

Thus, while work of eight buildings is nearing completion, that of 11 buildings is nowhere near completion. However, Laxmikant Deshmukh, state director of sports, underplayed the issue, saying the situation created by the exodus of labour was not serious. “Most of the work is already done. We would get new labourers soon. There won’t be any problem in completing the work in the prescribed time”, he said.