Bali's report got the IOA extremely worried prompting its chief Suresh Kalmadi to ask steering committee chairman A.K. Mattoo to immediately contact Games organising secretary S.M. Hashmi, who is also secretary-general of the Jharkhand Olympic Association (JOA).

The two met on August 24 in Beijing during the Olympics and decided that Mattoo would visit Jharkhand this week -- tentatively scheduled for September 3 or 4.

He will check on work going on at the three venues of Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad, and is expected to submit a report by September 10. The IOA will take a final decision after that.

According to the source, a high-level meeting had decided that all infrastructure work should be completed by the end of September. That meeting was attended by steering committee members, including Mattoo, Bali, A.S.V. Prasad and Lalit Bhanot of the Indian Athletic Federation.

But things don't look good at the ground level. Spells of heavy rain have hampered construction work, making it difficult for everything to be ready by September as mandated by the IOA.

According to IOA guidelines, the National Games Organising Committee (NGOC) has to test all infrastructure facilities by October 15, 45 days ahead of the scheduled opening of the games on December 1.

Hashmi, however, put up a brave front. "I maintain the Games will be held in December, but we are under pressure. If for some reason the Games aren't held according to schedule, it will be a loss of face for us -- getting it to come to Jharkhand in 2003 was nothing short of a miracle."