The Hindu : Karnataka News : Petitions on BMIC project adjourned

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Wednesday, Mar 02, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Petitions on BMIC project adjourned

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, MARCH 1. Hearings on public interest litigation (PIL) petitions on the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) commenced in the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday with the All-India Manufacturers' Organisation (AIMO) seeking a direction for expeditious completion of the project.

The association said that it was founded in 1941 by Sir M. Visvesvaraya. It said the BMIC project was intended to decongest Bangalore and promote industrial and commercial growth. However, the progress of the project was tardy.

It sought a direction to the respondents from taking steps that will affect the execution of the project as originally envisaged. It said delay and stoppage, if any, of the project would contravene a High Court judgment of September 21, 1998, and a Supreme Court judgment of March 1999.

It said the present Government was trying to scuttle the project and the father of one of the Ministers had written a letter expressing some reservations about the project. It said though the project was envisaged in 1995, it had not taken off.

A Division Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, Nauvdip Kumar Sodhi, and Justice B. Padmaraj, adjourned further hearing of the case. The Bench dismissed several interlocutory applications (IA) from residents of villages coming in the BMICP area to be impleaded as respondents.

It dismissed an IA by the Gottigere Panchayat seeking to be impleaded in the PIL. The Bench said the IA was misconceived and the petitioners could raise the grounds the panchayat wanted to do.

The Bench said it would first hear the PIL by AIMO and later take up the PIL against the project filed by two MLAs, J.C. Madhuswamy from Chikanayakanahali, Tumkur district, and Srirama Reddy from Bagepalli, Kolar district, and S. Munnegowda, a resident of Sanjaynagar who have sought a stay on all further operations of the project and a direction to NICE not to create any further third-party rights on private and Government lands acquired for the project pending disposal of the petition.

They alleged that there had been large-scale illegalities in the acquisition of lands for the project. Lands that did not fall within the project area had either been acquired or notified.

They said nearly 4,000 acres of excess lands (both private and Government) were notified and acquired for the formation of peripheral roads and in the name of the corridor. Besides, the Government had illegally transferred or leased 1,117 acres around Bangalore to NICE.

They said NICE had mortgaged Government lands to raise Rs. 150 crore. This was not permissible and it amounted to using Government resources to raise funds.

The petitioners sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the acquisition of excess lands, the agreement between NICE and Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB), the mortgage of Government lands to raise funds and the deletion and denotification of lands.

They also sought direction to an independent agency to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project and urged the court to call for all records. The petitioners prayed for setting aside all acts of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Area Planning Authority and declare it as unconstitutional.

Notice

Justice N. Kumar on Tuesday ordered issue of emergent notice to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on a petition by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Project (NICE) and Nandi Economic Corridor Enterprise (NECE). The NHAI had on December 4, 2004 directed the petitioners to stop work on the construction of interchanges on the Bangalore-Tumkur Road (NH-4) and Bangalore-Hosur Road (NH-7).

The petitioners had planned the interchanges as part of the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway. The interchanges were to help the motorists enter and exit the expressway through the peripheral roads. It said the drawings for the interchanges had already been approved by the NHAI and any work had already started.

It said any change in the project now would make the petitioners incur losses. The NHAI had frozen the drawings and directed the petitioners not to go ahead with the construction.

The NHAI said the interchange on NH 7 would come in the way of the elevated expressway planned between Bangalore and Hosur.

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