Why India must bid for the 2036 Olympics

livemint.com:

India should bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games. It would boost urban and sports infrastructure and enhance India’s collective interest in athletic excellence, besides giving a boost to economic activity and tourism in particular. The key to making the Olympics a financial and economic success is detailed planning on where to hold the games, how to integrate the residences, offices and sports facilities built for the event into India’s infrastructure, and how to finance the games without adding much to the government’s spending.

There are several reasons why the naysayers’ scepticism about India bidding for the Olympics is misplaced. The sceptics worry that the costs would outdo the benefits by far. This concern is buttressed by recent international experience.

Victoria in Australia and Alberta in Canada reneged on their successful bids to host the Commonwealth Games of 2026 and 2030, respectively, and Vietnam scrapped its plan to host the 2018 Asian Games, all on cost grounds. India is placed differently from most countries when it comes to building new infrastructure – the costliest bit of hosting a global sports meet. India’s level of urbanisation in percentage is low (around 35%) but slated to rise sharply.

The global average is 50%, and for China, a large country that has undergone rapid industrialization and modernization, the share of the population living in urban areas is two-thirds. There is no denying India’s imperative to urbanise. Assuming that India will become 50% urban thanks to sustained rapid growth, the number of Indians moving from villages to towns will be something like 200 million over the next couple of decades.