Australian companies with contracts from the Commonwealth Games in India last month say they are still missing hundreds of millions of dollars in overdue payments and equipment.

Australian Andrew Howard says his fireworks company is one of 14 companies from Australia, the UK, Europe and the US that say they are still waiting for their final payment for work on the opening and closing ceremonies.

They have warned the organising committee could face legal action within days.

Mr Howard has slammed the committee as being incompetent and unethical.

"I've never worked on a project anywhere in the world with so much incompetence, with people that have been put into positions on the organising committee that have no experience in event management whatsoever," he said.

"They just have no organisational skills.

"And we're now in a situation where it's really affecting our ongoing business."

Mr Howard says, as a group, the companies are owed between $10 million and $20 million.

He says many more businesses could be affected and their futures are under threat as they wait for more than 100 freight containers of audio, staging, lighting and pyrotechnic equipment that are stuck in New Delhi.

"They haven't sorted out their paperwork and I would say that the combined value of all this equipment would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," he said.

Mr Howard says the companies involved in the ceremonies will begin legal action against the organisers if they are not satisfied by early next week.

"We've been very patient. It's very clear in the contract what needs to be paid and what goods need to be returned," he said.

The Australian Government says the High Commission in Delhi has asked the Indian government today to pay the money and return the equipment as soon as possible.

The secretary-general of the Delhi Games organising committee, Dr Lalit Bhanot, says the contracts will be fulfilled but the process cannot be rushed because "these things take time".

Open letter

But the executive producer of the opening ceremony, Australian Ric Birch, who has worked on five Olympic Games, has written an open letter complaining of the committee's total disregard and incompetence.

"We've never had problems like this. Every organising committee is basically organised, except in Delhi," he said.

"Part of the problem I think was that Suresh Kalmadi, who was the chairman of the organising committee, appointed a lot of personal friends or people he knew and the organising committee was staffed by people who were not necessarily particularly qualified for the jobs they held."

Mr Birch says he feels the situation has deteriorated since Mr Kalmadi was forced to resign.

"All the people he appointed are feeling that they don't have their protector there, so they're doing absolutely nothing," he said.

In India, there are calls for an inquiry into Mr Kalmadi's role in alleged corruption and claims that his committee has misappropriated nearly $2 billion.

In the past fortnight three top officials from the organising committee have been arrested.