NICE brushes aside K'taka govt's move to take over BMIC project

Bangalore, June 16 (UNI) Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) Managing Director Ashok Kheny today brushed aside the Karnataka Government's proposed move to take over the ongoing Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project from the company, saying that every citizen had the right to exercise his rights and it was guaranteed in the Constitution.

Speaking to newspersons at Hemmigepura after attending the launch of a section of the first phase of the Rs 2,250 crore project, he opined that Indian democracy was the most superior when compared to others in the world. ''Such issues cannot be left to the whims and fancies of an individual,'' he said in an oblique reference to Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's move to bring in a legislation to take over the project.

''If you are afraid of God, then you will not do anything wrong,'' he added.

Hoping that there would not be any more impediments in the implementation of the project, he said he was ready to cooperate with the government and resolve the tangle. ''We have requested already and we will be too happy to meet him (Mr Kumaraswamy) as such discussions will always lead to transparency,'' he remarked.

Asked about the charge levelled against him that he had engaged in real estate business through the project, Mr Kheny said this issue was also eloquently mentioned in the Supreme Court verdict.

Terming the charge as ''unfair,'' he said while numerous developers from elsewhere were busy selling thousands of acres of land in and around the city, being a Kannadiga, he had never sold an inch of the land meant for the project. ''It was like a Goebbellian theory,'' he added.

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