BMIC Project, a monumental fraud

The House Committee of the Karnataka Legislature has done a commendable job in exposing the monumental fraud in the execution of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, which is nowhere near completion even two decades after it was sanctioned. The committee, headed by Law Minister T B Jayachandra, has pointed out that the promoter of the project, the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE), had violated 16 of the 22 agreement norms and yet no action had been initiated. Though the objective of the project was to build 111 km concrete expressway between Bengaluru and Mysuru, besides five townships, it has not progressed beyond Bengaluru city. Pointing out that NICE has “illegally” collected Rs 1,350 crore as toll from road users since 2012, the committee has recommended stopping the toll and forfeiture of the fee collected so far.

The contours of this scandal, which ‘passed’ through at least five different governments headed by all major political parties in Karnataka, are mind-boggling. From grossly excess land being allotted at a throwaway price of Rs 10 per acre, to sale deeds being issued for lands meant to be given on lease, to illegally allotting 20 lakes extending over 213 acres for the construction of the road, the political and administrative patronage the project received was extraordinary. It appears that Ashok Kheny, managing director of NICE and currently an independent MLA, could get anything done at will as the stamp duty exemption initially
given for 5,688 acres was extended to 14,337 acres, causing huge financial loss to the government, and he was allowed to freely sell and mortgage hundreds of acres of land in violation of the clauses of the original framework agreement. The land owners or farmers have been the real victims of the project as only 27% of them have received full compensation, and a field study conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Change found that, shockingly, nearly 60% of the land losers have become daily wage
earners. The fact that as many as 137 important files concerning the project have mysteriously gone missing and a former PWD secretary, who represented the government in the initial stages of the project, has joined NICE as a director, speaks volumes
of the complicity of the official machinery in the fraud.

As rightly suggested by the committee, it is a fit case to be handed over to the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate for further investigation into the irregularities and stringent penal action to be taken against all those involved. The state government should also initiate immediate action to withdraw 11,660 acres of excess land earmarked for the project and make out a strong case for taking over the project in the larger public interest.