The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : NGO's charge against NICE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 18, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

NGO's charge against NICE

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Environment Support Group, a city-based NGO, has alleged that the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Ltd (NICE) has been "obfuscating" matters in order to cover up its more than 20 deviations from the approved alignment while implementing the 41-km peripheral road as part of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) Project.

ESG coordinator Leo F. Saldanha told presspersons here on Friday that NICE had been issuing statements that implied that the State Government was violating the Supreme Court order in preventing NICE from completing the project by not releasing land."This may appear as if the law protects NICE's action while all that the Government and its agencies have done is illegal," Mr. Saldanha said.

The Supreme Court had at no time directed the State Government to allow NICE to build the project in variance with the following clearances, namely, the road alignment, from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), the BMIC Area Planning Authority (BMICAPA). The Supreme Court had upheld the right of the State Government to take any action as appropriate if there was violation of the law in the implementation of the project.

The State Government might withdraw the clearances and approvals granted, and even cancel the Framework Agreement, Mr Saldanha said.

In this context, the KSPCB had already withdrawn consent for establishment after it found that the road alignment approved by it was "significantly different from the one approved by BMICAPA on February 12, 2004"

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