Kumaraswamy urges Karnataka government to take over NICE Road, scrap toll

Union minister H D Kumaraswamy wrote a letter to Karnataka CM D K Shivakumar on Saturday. (File photo)

Union minister H D Kumaraswamy has urged Chief Minister D K Shivakumar to stop the collection of tolls along Bengaluru’s Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) Road, citing a Karnataka High Court order that said the project appeared “to be one of the biggest scams in the state”.

NICE Road, or the Bengaluru Mysuru Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP), has come under scrutiny for violating the project’s framework agreement.

In a letter dated August 15, Kumaraswamy urged Shivakumar to “immediately stop the illegal collection of toll” and “take over the project by enacting a law”.

In July this year, a division bench of the high court observed that the BMICP appeared “to be one of the biggest scams in the state” and a fit case for an independent assessment and investigation. There have since been demands to stop the collection of tolls along the disputed NICE Road.

Kumaraswamy flagged several violations, such as NICE not adhering to the framework and technical agreements, failing to concretise tolled roads, and unlawfully hiking tolls, among others. His letter quoted a court observation that there was “nothing nice about NICE project except that farmers have been robbed of their lands and livelihood of generations without payment of compensation as mandated under Article 300 A of the Constitution of India”.

Apart from the high court, the Supreme Court, and a Cabinet sub-committee set up under a previous Congress government had highlighted lapses and violations of terms by NICE while implementing the BMICP, Kumaraswamy added.

Shivakumar said that although he was aware of the JD(S) leader’s letter, he was yet to go through it. “In terms of NICE Road, we will act as per law,” he told reporters.