A land-intensive scheme draws flak

AN AMBITIOUS project mired in controversy in Karnataka is the proposed Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, better known as the expressway project.

More than considerations of ecology, the objection to the project has been on the ground that it is a ``land intensive '' scheme which will destroy 21,000 acres of agricultural and other lands; that it is more of a real estate or land development project than an expressway; that the toll to be paid by the users of the expressway would be high; that the interests of the people living along the proposed expressway are being ignored.

Compounding its problems are the two alternatives suggested - to widen and improve the existing Bangalore-Mysore highway and double the Bangalore-Mysore railway line which is cheaper and does not involve the acquisition of agricultural lands as the existing rail corridor can be made use of.

The expressway project is proposed to be executed on a Build-Own- Operate-Transfer (BOOT) basis by the private sector Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd, part of the Pune based Kalyani group. It will have a new alignment , though it will run parallel (at a considerable distance) to the existing highway. It will take off at a point beyond Kengeri (on the outskirts of Bangalore ) and run to Mysore through Arakere (Bannur) in Mysore district.

Mr.Ashok Kheny, Managing Director of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises, says that the project will utilise a total of 20,193 acres of land comprising 17,842 acres of dry and kharab (waste) lands, 1,946 acres of wet lands, 237 acres of garden land and 168 acres of forest land. However, the Government has told the State Legislature that the land required for the expressway component of the project is only between 1500 and 2000 acres. The critics of the project are also basing their attack on that aspect among others.

Meeting the criticisms of the environmentalists, Mr. Kheny claims that theirs is an environmental friendly company. It has identified 251 lakes within a radius of five km. from the proposed expressway for desilting and use the silt in the construction of the expressway. He maintains that a comprehensive environmental impact study was done for the project by the Government of India company, MECON and the Tata AIG Risk Management Group. The detailed land survey was done with the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation and the National Remote Sensing Agency (Hyderabad). Unfortunately for the promoters of the project, the two public hearings held in Mysore and Mandya during June and July last turned out to be stormy ones and no dispassionate discussions could take place. For instance, at a public hearing on the project organised by the Government itself in Bangalore a few months ago, the special land acquisition officer appointed for the project made the questionable claim that none of those whose lands were sought to be acquired had objected to the acquisition proceedings. It is common knowledge that almost all those whose lands or properties are sought to be acquired object to the notification and few willingly agree to be deprived of their holdings.

A charge against the State Government is that it has not come clean on many aspects of the project and that there are secret clauses in the agreement signed with the private company for the corridor project.

The critics point out while the Government or the company will compensate those who will lose their lands, the farm workers depending on those lands will lose their livelihood as they will not get any compensation. They will end up in the slums of Bangalore and Mysore. However, even the critics are objecting not to the proposed expressway despite the suggested alternatives but to its land-consuming township component.

A. Jayaram

in Bangalore

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