Documents related to BMIC project ‘missing’, reveals RTI query

Crucial documents, based on which the framework agreement (FWA) on the controversial Bangalore–Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project was signed with a private company, have gone “missing” from the government files.

The documents include various draft copies of the FWA that were deliberated and modified by various departments during 1996–1997 before signing the FWA on April 3, 1997 with the private company, Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE).

Among the missing drafts of the FWA is the one, which was approved by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah when he was the Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister during January–February 1997.

The most vital, the final draft FWA approved by the State Cabinet at its meeting held on March 17, 1997 is also “missing” from the file. Even though the Cabinet records refer to the final draft FWA, submitted by the Public Works Department, as an “annexure” to its proceedings, the “annexure” has “disappeared”.

Also, the draft FWA, submitted in 1996 by a foreign consortium, which was later substituted by NICE, is also not found in the files. Though the High Court and Supreme Court were told that NICE had submitted a draft FWA in February 1997, there is no trace of such a draft FWA in the files.

These aspects have come to light now as the departments of Finance, Public Works and Law, and the Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (KSIIDC) have admitted that drafts of the FWA are “not available” in files in their response to landowner B.P. Kamala’s RTI queries.

Ms. Kamala, whose land was notified for the project, has been seeking information under the RTI Act for the last year to know how the government granted a total of 20,193 acres for the entire project and 6,999 acres for the toll road portion of the project in the FWA when the project report, approved by the government in 1995, specified 18,413 acres as total land required for the entire project (including five townships, a peripheral road and a link road) and 5,120 acres for the toll road portion.

Pointing out the total absence of any deliberation on the need for additional land, exceeding 18,413 acres in the files, Ms. Kamala has now submitted complaints to Mr. Siddaramaiah and Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee alleging that draft copies of the FWA were “deliberately removed” from the files as there was “no official approval” to grant 20,193 acres as mentioned in the FWA.