Expressway left hanging at one-end

Ban orders by administration holds up BMIC project launch in Mysore

The inauguration of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project from the Mysore-end failed to take off on Friday.

The Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) managing director Ashok Kheny was unwilling to defy the day-long prohibitory orders imposed the previous night at the inauguration site at Rajiv Nagar on the outskirts of Mysore on July 7.

After dropping his proposal to launch the work on Friday, Kheny told reporters that he welcomed the announcement of chief minister H D Kumaraswamy in the Assembly on Thursday night to hold a judicial enquiry into the 11-year-old project.

"We have no complaints. We will co-operate as we are more transparent than any other project," he said, adding, "The judicial enquiry should cover not only the past officers but also the present ones."

"The problem is not Kheny, H D Deve Gowda or the chief minister. The problem is the bureaucracy, the system we have inherited from the British, who wanted the country to remain undeveloped," he lamented.

At the end of the day's four-hour high drama, which witnessed the NICE MD running from pillar to post, including the deputy commissioner's office, who is also the chairman of the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA), and facing two pro-project demonstrations and one demonstration against the project, Kheny said he will launch the work from Mysore on July 11.

He hoped that the issue will be resolved between the MUDA and the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), which had come in the way of launching the work on the expressway, before July 11.

He will meet the chief minister and request him to release the land.

On the grounds that KIADB had not paid for the land, the MUDA authorities, which is in possession of the land, had stopped the work initiated by NICE engineers on Thursday with the help of the police. The police had barricaded the spot and imposed ban orders under Section 144. DC and MUDA chairman Selva Kumar said that MUDA had stopped the work "to protect its property from encroachment".

Hoping that the payment from KIADB will come to the MUDA before July 11 and the paper process will be completed by then, Kheny expressed confidence at completing the Kanakapura-Bannerghatta and Mysore-Magadi sections of the peripheral road by August 15.

The work from Mysore till Cauvery bridge will be completed in three months.

Except the BMIC project, no major project including the Bangalore International Airport, Bangalore metro or the Nagarjuna power project were taking shape. Even after 14 years, not a single flight has taken off or even one km of metro come through. Meanwhile, 9.5 km of peripheral road of the BMIC project had been put into service.

He said that he will not drop the project. "We have a commitment to do the job. We will do it."

The NICE MD expressed surprise at the authorities stopping him from launching the work. "In 2004, a government order had been issued for starting the work. It is unfortunate that we could not start the work. I don't know why they had stopped the work. It is very puzzling for me."

He had met the chief secretary and requested his help to speed up the project and release land as directed by the Supreme Court. "After all this is public-private partnership enterprise. We want all your help," he had told the chief secretary.

Even when he met the chief minister he had explained all the issues involved, Kheny said.

"We don't want to go to the court. We want this issue to be amicably settled. The moment the land is given to us, we are ready to start the work," he added.