BENGALURU: Continuing his 13-year-old battle against Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC), former prime minister and JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda on Thursday shot off a missive to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to order a CB investigation against Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) which is implementing the project.
In the letter, a copy of which was released to the media on Thursday, Gowda has asked Modi to appoint former CAG Vinod Rai to study the project report before handing it over to the CBI.
He has asked Modi to ensure that stringent guidelines are framed before handing over projects to foreign investors for building the proposed 100 smart cities and other highway development projects in India under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
In his seven-page letter, Gowda gave a brief history of how the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by his government in 1995 when he was the chief minister with a US-based company was later handed over to an Indian firm.
The original project was to bring in an investment of `1,585 crore, he said and added that the then Janata Dal government, headed by him, had approved 18,300 acres of land to build five smart cities to decongest Bengaluru.
All these conditions have been diluted after the rights were transferred to the Indian firm, he alleged.