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Karnataka HC criticized the project for completing only 1 km of the proposed 111 km corridor in the last two decades and said the state government should consider abandoning it.
The first section of NICE Road in Bengaluru, which is part of the larger BMICH project, was inaugurated on 16 June 2006. (Image: PTI/File)
The Bengaluru-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor, commonly known as the ‘NICE’ corridor, has suffered a significant setback as the Karnataka High Court criticized the lack of progress on the project and asked the state government to consider abandoning it.
The Karnataka High Court slammed the project for completing only 1 km of the proposed 111 km corridor in the last two decades. Additionally, the court said, none of the five satellite townships planned since 1995 to decongest Bengaluru have been realized.
The ruling Congress in Karnataka told the high court that little could be done as the matter was pending in the Supreme Court. During the last winter session of the state assembly, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar had said, “Even if he wants to do something, it cannot be done because the matter is in the Supreme Court.”
The project faced strong opposition from former Prime Minister Deve Gowda. After years of political and legal battles, he withdrew from his campaign against the project, citing poor health and growing disillusionment.
What did the Karnataka High Court say?
The Karnataka High Court suggested that the state government should consider abandoning the BMICH project, pointing out that the project has remained on paper for almost 30 years.
“The city has a population of over 1.4 crores. Heavy traffic and traffic jams are the order of the day. It takes hours to cover a small distance in the city. The basic amenities are crumbling. The environment is badly affected,” the court said. “The state government should take necessary decisions for a new scheme by rejecting the FWA of the project at the earliest to improve the living conditions of the city.”
A division bench of Justices DK Singh and Venkatesh Naik hoped that an informed decision would be taken soon. It highlighted that while the main expressway is incomplete, project proponents have constructed peripheral roads and toll plazas.
“The project proponents are collecting huge tolls by constructing peripheral roads and toll plazas. They are sitting on a huge land bank, but without proper utilization of it as the expressway has not been constructed yet, and there is no sign of its construction in future. Therefore, we direct the State Government to re-look at the project and take appropriate steps in this regard.”
A project aimed at decongesting Bengaluru has disrupted the judicial system, the HC said bluntly in its remarks.
“Instead of decongesting the city by developing five townships on the Bengaluru-Mysore corridor, this project has created jams and congestion in the High Court and other courts,” it said.
Highlighting the slow progress of the project, the court said that in more than 25 years, only 1 km of the total 111 km expressway has been constructed, making a strong case for scrapping it.
The high court made the observation while dismissing a petition filed by Chandrika, a resident of Benson Town, Bengaluru, who had sought compensation from NICE Ltd and the state government. The project was to be executed after a Framework Agreement (FWA) was signed with NICE in 1997; Hence, it was named NICE Corridor. This was one of many cases involving this project.
The court said the petitioner had concealed the fact that he had already received Rs 51.36 lakh as compensation in 2007 by signing indemnity bonds for full and final settlement for the acquisition of three acres and 23 guntas near Kengeri in Bengaluru.
The bench did not hold back from criticizing the project. Reflecting on the original vision of the project, it was observed that the “beautiful and futuristic” idea of ​​decongesting the city, as outlined in the 1995 Project Technical Report (PTR), was “killed” – to the detriment of citizens and the environment. It said no purpose was served by keeping the BMICH alive when the expressway project had made minimal progress and remained a traffic burden.
What did the Karnataka government say?
In the last winter session of the legislature, when Congress MLC Madhu G Madegowda raised the issue in the Legislative Council in Belagavi in ​​December 2025, Shivakumar said the government could neither stop the BMICH project nor make changes in it due to binding Supreme Court rulings.
“Even if I want to leave it, I cannot do so because there is a three-bench judgement. But local level issues, including approval of plans for construction of houses, can be resolved through the relevant legal authorities,” Shivakumar said. He said the local MLA had also approached him with a similar request.
Shivakumar, who also holds the Bengaluru Development portfolio, read out parts of the Supreme Court judgment and said the state has no authority to add to, subtract from or cancel the project. He was responding to Madegowda’s demand to stop the project, especially when the Bengaluru-Mysore six-lane expressway is already operational.
Madegowda suggested that the land identified for acquisition under the Bengaluru-Mysuru Infrastructure Corridor Area Planning Authority should be returned if the NICE project is no longer serving its purpose. Shivakumar said that the applications pending in the District Commissioner’s office for land conversion, including those submitted online, will be examined and a technical opinion will be provided for the time being.
Why did former PM Deve Gowda have objection?
Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda strongly opposed the BMICH project, not only because he was against the expressway, but because he believed that the project had become an instrument of excessive and unfair land acquisition at the expense of large-scale farmers.
Despite repeated court interventions and years of protests by farmers, especially against the project promoter, Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE), Deve Gowda said no meaningful corrective action was taken.
Their main allegation was that NICE acquired far more land than was required for the expressway and related infrastructure, creating a large land bank which, according to them, was being commercially exploited while the main project remained incomplete. He repeatedly stressed that only a small portion of the proposed expressway was built over the decades, with NICE being allowed to build peripheral roads and toll plazas and collect tolls.
The former prime minister argued that the project had deviated from its original purpose and effectively become a land-operated enterprise rather than a public infrastructure project. Their protest intensified after 2004, when farmers from Kanakapura – then part of their parliamentary constituency and the area through which a major part of the project passes – complained that additional land had been notified and acquired. He raised their grievances, accusing the company of land grabbing and urged the government to take back the surplus land, which he claimed had no connection with the expressway.
The controversy dates back to 1995, when as CM he had signed the agreement for the BMICH project with a consortium, which later transferred its rights to NICE. At that time, Siddaramaiah was in JD(S) and was the state finance minister, and the finance department had approved the project.
Deve Gowda later argued that the scope and intent of the project were subsequently changed, especially with regard to land acquisition, and that these changes were never part of the original agreement. As his criticism grew, he demanded a CBI inquiry into the project, alleging nexus between the company and certain sections of the political establishment.
He accused successive governments of protecting NICE and allowing the project to drag on for decades, even as farmers lost their land without the promised expressway being completed. The controversy eventually reached the courts after NICE filed a defamation suit against him over comments he made during a television interview in 2011, where he described the BMICH project as “a robbery”.
In 2021, a sessions court in Bengaluru ordered Deve Gowda to pay damages of Rs 2 crore to NICE for loss of reputation, holding that he had failed to prove his allegations made during the 2011 interview. The court termed the comments defamatory, although he said his opposition to the project was based on public interest and farmers’ grievances. He later expressed his sadness at being embroiled in a long legal battle even in his old age.
Basically, their objections remained the same: that the BMICH project has deviated from its stated objective, accumulated excessive land, failed to complete the promised expressway, and continued despite sustained protests by farmers and repeated judicial investigations. In 2025, he questioned why he was named in an SC petition related to the BMICH project, and criticized the state government for including him in the new suit.
What is the NICE/BMIC project?
The BMICH project was conceived in 1995, when the Karnataka government under then CM HD Deve Gowda approved the plan for a high-speed expressway connecting Bengaluru and Mysore, keeping in mind the future expansion of the two cities.
An MoU was signed with NICE to build a four-lane expressway with provision for expansion to six lanes. The project also included developing five satellite townships along the corridor.
NICE Road in Bengaluru, which is part of the larger BMICH project, saw its first extension – a 9 kilometer stretch of the Peripheral Road connecting Mysore Road and Kanakapura Road – which was inaugurated on June 16, 2006. Subsequent sections were opened in phases, connecting major arterial roads such as Tumakuru Road, Mysore Road, Bannerghatta Road, Hosur Road and Kanakapura Road, serving as a private toll corridor. Since then, no real progress has been made.
Another Bengaluru-Mysore Expressway
While the NICE road was in limbo, a parallel six-lane Bengaluru-Mysore Expressway was envisioned during CM Siddaramaiah’s first tenure between 2013 and 2018.
The Congress government moved away from the stalled BMIC/NICE model to remodel the corridor as a state-led, access-controlled expressway. While the project’s alignment and land acquisition were rushed during that phase, construction accelerated later under the BJP government.
The state expressway was eventually inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 12, 2023, when the BJP was in power in Karnataka, weeks before the 2023 assembly elections.
January 14, 2026, 07:30 IST
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