Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar hinted at the revival of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC), a project which had been officially shelved 23 years ago. Shivakumar cited regional development and job creation in smaller towns between the two cities gave as the main reasons for suggesting its revival.
The announcement has been received with some unease, so it would be well to step back in time to understand what BMIC was about, and why it was shelved.
BMIC was conceived in 1995. A memorandum of understanding was signed by then chief minister of Karnataka H D Deve Gowda and the Governor of Massachusetts, United States, and members of a consortium of US and Indian firms, for the purpose. The Indian firm Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise – with the catchy acronym ‘NICE’ – secured a concessional agreement with the Government of Karnataka under a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) scheme of 30 years.
The BMIC project included a 110-km expressway with seven townships (later reduced to five by the government) along the route. Each township was limited to housing one lakh elite population. The expressway route was between (then) SH-17 and SH-86. The government gave MoU assurance of 2 tmcft of Cauvery water and 400 MW of dedicated electric power to NICE, which was expected to borrow Rs 2,000 crore for BMIC from financial institutions.
The idea of a continuously walled/fenced 90 m wide, six-lane expressway with tolled entries only at the two ends and the townships, and promising 90-minute travel time for cars driving at 130 kmph between Bengaluru and Mysuru, was the selling point to the public. The corridor needed to acquire about 13,000 acres for the townships and 7,000 acres for the expressway. The five townships envisaged were, a ‘Corporate Centre’ as home for corporate headquarters, offices and R&D facilities; a ‘Commercial Centre’ dedicated to retail, light industry, handicrafts, and municipal support services; an ‘Industrial Centre’ to specialise in ‘clean’ manufacturing and industrial R&D; a ‘Heritage Centre’ featuring a central lake and buildings to house arts and crafts and all Indian cultural heritages, and a pilgrimage site with conference and traditional healing facilities; and an ‘Eco-Tourism Centre’ of environmental attractions, theme parks and a cultural arts centre, as a destination for Indians and foreign tourists.
Land acquisition of 20,000 acres affected 177 villages and about two lakh rural people, working on rich productive farmlands, even though the government wrongly maintained that 80 per cent of the land required was kharab land. Farmlands were to be acquired at about Rs 2 lakh per acre as compensation, while at that time, it was estimated that the township housing plots would fetch NICE about Rs 100 lakh per acre.
Level-headed analysis showed that widening and strengthening SH-17 and SH-86, and providing bypasses around towns and villages, by acquiring minimal land and removing encroachments, would be much more cost effective. It was argued that while better roads to benefit more people were undoubtedly needed, an exclusive corridor with high-end townships in between, at high long-term cost was unnecessary. BMIC thus appeared to be a venture for huge profits from sale of real estate, packaged as a tolled expressway for rapid road movement between Bengaluru and Mysuru, with farmers bearing the real-time, real-life costs by loss of land and livelihood.
However, the lucrative possibilities of BMIC, made the government immune to reason, and land acquisition proceeded. People, mostly farmers and other members of rural communities, protested on the ground, repeatedly blocking roads and even trains. Urban activists cogently articulated through many articles and letters in newspapers and to officials in government, that financial, economic and social issues, especially the lives and livelihoods of farmers and the rural communities, made BMIC economically and socially unviable, and hence undesirable.
Due to a combination of public protests, allegations of excess land acquired, the upcoming doubling and electrification of the broad gauge rail link, upgrading SH-17 to National Highway standards, and financial constraints, NICE was able to construct only a part of the Peripheral Ring Road around Bengaluru (now called the “NICE Road”), before BMIC was shelved by (then) CM S M Krishna.
According to a March 14, 2001 newspaper report, the State Government “… decided against building the Bangalore-Mysore Express Highway (Infrastructure Corridor Project) and instead will convert the existing Bangalore-Mysore Highway into four lanes”, and decided to allocate Rs 400 crore for the proposed conversion works. The project was to be taken up by pre-qualified contractors and monitored by the Karnataka Road Development Corporation (KRDC).
Today, Bengaluru-Mysuru connectivity is amazingly good, with nearly 40 daily rail services over doubled and electrified tracks reducing travel time between city centres to under two hours, and the six-lane tolled expressway enabling rapid road travel for buses and cars.
Unintended consequences
The lands which the government notified and succeeded in acquiring for BMIC two decades ago, are today in limbo. Accurate figures of the land ownership and extent are not available, at present. However, Shivakumar’s announcement has brought this matter into the public eye, and reportedly farmers are once again incensed, and are proposing to agitate. This is an unintended outcome of proposing revival of a project that was shelved with good reason, in 2001. Whether the BMIC land-losers (those still alive 20-plus years later, or their heirs) will get their unutilised land back, is another matter.
Shivakumar did not offer any details about his plan, or provide information on how much land would be required for the project. However, the expected job-creation which he mooted will not change the fact that land to be acquired for (a revived) BMIC, will deprive large numbers of rural families of land and livelihood, and disrupt their social structures. Besides, they will not get the jobs hopefully created by industries, and may well be forced to migrate to town and city slums. Thus, BMIC revived, is likely to aggravate development asymmetry and have demographic, social and political consequences which are best avoided.