Three decades after its conception, the Karnataka High Court has directed the state government to scrap the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project and undertake a comprehensive review. The court was unsparing in its assessment: since the project was conceptualised in 1996, barely 1 km of the proposed 111-km expressway has been built and none of the five planned townships has materialised. A technical report submitted in August 1995 had envisaged an expressway between Bengaluru and Mysuru, peripheral roads connecting national highways, and residential, industrial and commercial hubs, along with five self-sustaining townships from Bidadi to Srirangapatna. Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICEL), the concessionaire, did construct tolled roads linking the city to its outskirts. However, vast tracts of land acquired at negligible rates from farmers lie unused even decades later.
That 13 successive governments allowed the project to drift reflects sustained political and administrative abdication cutting across parties. Conceived during a JD(S) regime, the corridor was presented as a development catalyst in the Vokkaliga belt, but successive governments failed to either enforce contractual obligations or protect landowners’ interests. While JD(S) leaders H D Deve Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy later highlighted the distress of farmers who sold land that has since become prime real estate, these concerns emerged long after the damage was done. NICEL was entitled to acquire only 13,237 acres of private land, yet 29,267 acres were notified. Of these, 13,404 acres remained under preliminary notification for 25 years, freezing livelihoods. A 2016 House committee detailed serious irregularities involving NICEL, its promoter Ashok Kheny and officials: land acquired at throwaway prices, stamp duty exemptions for 14,337 acres, illegal allotment of 20 lakes, and repeated violations of concession terms, including sale and mortgaging of unused land.
Recent interventions have begun to correct the record. In July 2025, the high court quashed acquisition notifications issued between 1998 and 2009, granting relief to landowners. The state cabinet has proposed returning 13,418 acres to farmers, while other notified parcels remain under review. Yet, such measures alone are insufficient. The project stands exposed as a large-scale land grab enabled by political patronage and bureaucratic complicity across regimes. Those who profited from it must now be identified, investigated and held accountable. Only then can the state claim to have closed a chapter marked by dispossession and institutional failure.