BMIC: NICE to inaugurate 1st phase on Jun 16

Bangalore, June 15: Braving political pitfalls and protests by farmers, the much-delayed controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project will ultimately see the light of the day, with the 9.2 km first phase, connecting Mysore Road and Kanakapura road on the outskirsts of the city, all set to be inaugurated tomorrow.

The Rs 2,000 crore project, which promised to reduce the travelling time between the two cities by half, was being executed by private sector Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE).

It took a minimum of three hours to traverse in the existing 140-km-long State highway, one of the busiest highways in South India, built over 100 years ago.

Sans the usual pomp and show attached to such major projects, the stretch would be thrown open for road traffic at a ''soft launch.'' The 111-km Expressway had been bogged down by controversies and hit by several roadblocks ever since it was sanctioned eleven years ago.

The four-lane expressway was conceived in 1995 when the Janata Dal, led by Mr H D Deve Gowda, was in power and ultimately sanctioned by the Krishna-headed Congress Government in 2001.

The project right from the initial stage faced several hiccups, be it during public hearing on land acquisition or environmentalists outcry against the expressway crossing the forest land, disturbing bird habitats.

The launch comes at a time when the incumbent Janata Dal (S)-BJP coalition government was accusing NICE of having acquired excess land for the project around Bangalore, affecting the farming community, raking up yet another controversy. The fresh controversy had also created differences between the the ruling coalition partners, with the JD(S) firm on the government taking over the project and the BJP insisting that only excess land of 2,450 acres be redeemed taken over by the government. A legislation was even being contemplated to facilitate the process.

The Kumaraswamy Government had threatened to take over the project, saying that the promoter was more interested in doing ''real estate business'' than building an expressway.

Both the Supreme Court and the Karnataka High Court had come down heavily on the State government for putting spokes in the project.

First, the Karnataka High Court expressed displeasure over the state government creating hurdles to NICE and ruled that the promoter was entitled for the 20,193 acres of land originally earmarked for the project. When the government approached the Supreme Court, the latter dismissed the appeal, stating that the state government's arguments were 'frivolous' and its conduct of this litigation 'malafide'. It also slapped a fine of Rs five lakh on the government.

The latest embarassment to the government was bouncing of a cheque submitted to NICE for Rs five lakh by the State Public Works Department, honouring the Apex Court direction.

UNI

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