Karnataka CM moots public debate on corridor project

Karnataka CM moots public debate on corridor project

The Hindu Business Line

`Not against project but concerned about Government assets'



The Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr H.D. Kumaraswamy, has proposed a public debate with the developers of Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) to bring out the facts about the controversy-ridden project.

Mr Kumaraswamy on Monday said that he was not against the expressway-cum-township project but was concerned about Government assets (land) that have to be protected.

There was no question of taking over the project or backtracking on it, he added.

However, in the light of statements from the implementing company - Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd (NICE Ltd) - discrediting the Government, he said: "We have to put an end to all this once for all through an open debate right away."

He also refuted charges that the project or the recent hostility from his party towards the project had anything to do with his own land around the area, as reported in a section of the press on Monday. He clarified that he had bought the 24 acres - said to be close to the project alignment - in 1983 well before the corridor project was conceived.

Infrastructure regulation bill

On the infrastructure regulation Bill that his Government is purportedly planning, Mr Kumaraswamy said: "The Law Department will guide the Government as to how it (the land) can be saved." Without elaborating, he added, "Wait for two or three days, we will publish all the facts."

Mr Kumaraswamy's contention is that NICE is trying to grab prime land around the city in the name of the project. "I will not allow it."

NICE has denied that it has any surplus land and has said that the Government has transferred 1,700 acres of the 2,500 acres as earlier agreed.

The statements to the media come even as the project's SPV, NICE, said that it has filed a police complaint against damage to a vital part of its peripheral road intersection near Bangalore and about hundreds of squatters on the stretch. NICE plans to throw open this stretch to public on June 16.

Project description

The Rs 2,250-crore BMICP, conceived in 1994 and co-promoted by the Kalyani Group, involves a 111-km toll road between the two cities and five townships along the expressway. The grade-separated, fenced, four-lane expressway is projected to halve the three-hour travel time between Bangalore and Mysore.

The BMICP has survived over 300 petitions, according to the NICE Managing Director, Mr Ashok Kheny.

Mr Kheny also said that PILs from environmentalists, politicians and the public, and its framework agreement upheld by the Supreme Court, have been in the news ever since recent reports said the State Government was piloting a Bill to enable Government takeover of the project and auction "excess land" granted to the project.