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Accountability on BMIC and Potential Meeting with Mr. Kheny

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Written By sumsri - 4 August, 2008

BMIC Bangalore NICE Road Works Citizen Reports Transportation Infrastructure

I am a new member of Praja and am excited to see the possibilities.

The main project that comes to mind is BMIC / NICE. There seems no credible and accountable source of information on progress for this anticipated project except for Hon. Deve Gowda complaining about land allocation. Core issues:

  1. NICE Site http://www.nicelimited.com has not been updated since Year 2000
  2. No Status available except latest news on Star of Mysore claiming a completion of Dec 2009 - I am assuming this is the road from Mysore to Bangalore
  3. No Work currently in progress on the Bannergatta Road Crossing from Electronic City to Kanakpura Road. The core update needed is "When are they finishing Hosur Road to Tumkur Road and relieving pressure on Bangalore City? How is the current government holding them accountable?

Any ideas on how we can setup a Praja meeting with Mr. Ashok Kheny? Secondly, how can we setup a second recurring meeting with Government officials on their take? Any advice is greatly appreciated. I plan to stop in the NICE office and ask for a meeting. What is the process for setting up a meeting on behalf of Praja?

COMMENTS

Heard from Mr Kheny's office

silkboard - 10 September, 2008 - 17:40

So we do have a meeting on the cards. He is currently out of country, we should soon hear on a date for the meeting. Stay tuned!

BMIC Meet

tsubba - 4 August, 2008 - 01:06

couldn't agree more. that will be awesome sumsri. i will bump this thread. perhaps interest folks will contact you. hopefully a schedule will come up. i have sent emails previously to NICE. always bounces back. another point i agree is that HDDG's media outpourings are perhaps the only source of any information on the project. nobody else talks of any details. currently, the govt has asked for detailed plans from NICE against which they plan to grant land.

Have you seen this?

Ravi_D - 4 August, 2008 - 04:02

Searching for info on NICE, rememebred looking at this quite some time ago. Don't know the legitimacy of any of the claims in these websites. Certainly difficult to get info when there is no transparency.

http://www.esgindia.org/campaigns/bmic/current/current.html

Here is another link I had seen in the past.

http://www.indiatogether.org/stories/bmicvhb.htm

Most of the info I have seen so far seem to indicate negative publicity. On the other hand, I have travelled on NICE peripheral road, and it is certainly better than any other I have drivern on recently in and around Bangalore. But, not sure of the kind of politics involved.

Ravi

yeah.

tsubba - 4 August, 2008 - 05:15

thanks for the links. i have gone through their sites. and have a fair idea about their position. but i have realized that the road and the townships could potentially be beneficial for bangalore. however, by all visible indications the project is veering way beyond that objective of roads and townships. now there are conference halls and theme parks and even movie studios on the list. now all of these are happy things to have but that was not what was on the original list. all these things take space on ground which comes out of bangalore. its as if we have outsourced a significant chunk of BDA/BMRDA work to NICE. for a project of this size and scope one would imagine that planning and maps that show details to the second decimal place exist somewhere. but apparently, even the government is groping in the dark. a decade into the project, they are still asking for detailed maps from NICE. how did this all happen without plans? how did KIADB go about acquiring lands without maps? to be brutally honest, i am not interested in the zillions of court rulings. most court cases are fought on logical and legal technicalities. these rulings dont help us understand anything about the project or its benefit itself. that is these rulings dont tell us anything about either the nyaaya or the nijaaythi of the project. that can only be gauged if something realistic is known about the project. in the absence of any public information, i think it is sensible to assume the worst about the project. it could be good for bangalore, it could be the worst thing for bangalore. but there is some sort of hanky panky going on in this project and that is defintely not good for bangalore. for a city that is cash strapped despite being home to the highest number of tax payers in the country, we need to know if bangalore was sold at a fair price. and i have not even said anything about the land losers.

Permission for apartments

mcadambi - 6 August, 2008 - 04:48

This comment has been moved here.

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