Olympics-Funds released for 2012 security upgrade

LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Nearly 20 million pounds ($32.9 million) of contingency funds have been released for security modifications to venues at the London 2012 Olympic Park, organisers said on Monday.

During the last three months, 19 million pounds were released to make the venues "more secure and resilient to attacks", the Department for Media, Culture and Sport said in its July Quarterly Economic Report.

With three years to go to the opening ceremony, the overall 9.2 billion pound Olympic budget remains unchanged, it added.

"The Olympic project remains on time and on budget," Olympic minister Tessa Jowell said in a statement.

The money has been spent on making all the venues at the east London site more blast resistant, though organisers were reluctant to give details.

"These are predominantly hardening modifications to existing structures," the report said.

"The forecast for security has not increased as this cost was included in the anticipated final cost in the previous report."

Lawmakers and security experts have accused the government of leaving it late to incorporate security elements into the venues' infrastructure.

All the main venues are under way, with construction of the handball arena starting this week, two months early.

The copper-clad venue, with 6,000 retractable seats, will host qualifying games for the handball competition as well as modern pentathlon fencing and Goalball in the Paralympics.

The report also said 65 percent of the 1.972 billion pounds contingency fund remained unreleased.

Most of the contingency up to now has been used for projects affected by the economic downturn, including the Olympic Village and media centres. (Editing by Nigel Hunt)