Land transfer still in limbo, says NICE

Land transfer still in limbo, says NICE
Deccan Herald

A day after the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s review petition, citing acquisition of excess land for the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Project (BMIC), the Public Works department chose to downplay the turn of events.

A day after the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s review petition, citing acquisition of excess land for the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Project (BMIC), the Public Works department chose to downplay the turn of events.

While the department said that the land transfer process had been continuing without hurdles after the SC’s April 20 verdict in favour of the project, promoters Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) returned fire saying that despite the SC clearance, the process had been stuck.

“The review petition was in no way impeding the process of land transfer. In a letter dated June 13, addressed to NICE Managing Director Ashok Kheny, we had made clear that we would follow the SC verdict in letter and spirit,” Mr P B Mahishi, Principal Secretary, PWD told Deccan Herald on Friday.


Mr Mahishi, however, did not spell out a deadline with regard to the entire transfer of land for the Rs 2500-crore project. “I’m not aware of any such deadline mentioned in the framework agreement.. As far as land transfer goes, there is no room for ambiguity. We have clearly conveyed our stance on the project to Mr Kheny,” he said.

Meanwhile, sources in NICE maintained that the land transfer process had been in limbo, though final notification on land acquisition had been issued long back. “The land transfer is just not happening. A week back, a 10-acre stretch was transferred for the project but this was pending for close to two years now,” a source in NICE said.

The NICE official said that another 1.5 acres of land were transferred in April, but maintained that the phased, bits-and-pieces transfer mode indicated lack of political will to follow the SC verdict ‘in letter and spirit’.

He said NICE was in deliberation with its legal counsels to chalk out the company’s future course of action. If the land transfer process continues with no further hurdles, BMIC could be up and operational by early 2008, he said.

“There’s no legal hurdle involved. All it takes is a combined political will to see that the corridor sees the light,” he said.