http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/27/stories/2008082750340100.htm 

The govt has started asking questions on this..which is a good thing happening!

KIADB, being a govt org., has flouted rules and processes and got overzealous to give extra land to NICE than what they needed!

Hope this ends with a off court settlement where sense prevails and NICE hands back the extra land and Kheny can stop looking at acting as recreation!

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Every mega PPP project seems to be stuck in some quagmire or the other, mostly political. 

It appears that projects proceed and violate some part of the agreement, and then government wakes up after the fact. This is not good for either the project promoter nor the public. If this is reflective of the way our government works, how do we break out of this rut.

One can assume that project promoters are expected to be expert in "briefcase technology".

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Regards

Devesh R. Agarwal

Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com

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we have said it here on numerous other posts - we need to know it all, both side's of the story. The framework agreements, status of progress/delays from NICE side, NICE's basis for all accusations, and KA govt's defense.

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No ids, no. Definitely don't expect land requirements to be stated directly in IRC. But that can certainly be deduced from expressway standards if they exist, carriageway width, lanw widths, emergency lane buffers, setback of service road from main lanes, and setback of fence from main lanes or service roads (expressways in India would certainly need to be fenced) - all this should give you the width. This multiplied by the length should give you the minimum land required for an expressway, righto?

I just wanted us to get some sense of these numbers - what exactly do 8000 or 7000 acres mean for a 134 km long expressway?

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Kannada writer U R Anantamurty files a PIL against NICE regarding this issue. Source TOI.

-Shastri

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Some other reports in the past had 'claimed' that NICE had less than 7000 acre excess land. This PIL (as reported by above TOI news) says 8000 acres? Are these numbers a joke?

I am very interested in knowing how they decide how much land is really needed to build the expressway. Actually, do we have expressway standards (idontspam), does IRC have anything? These PILs may end up setting these (lane width, distance of service road from main lanes, setback of service road from the fence, width of carriageway etc.

However, most of the land in "dispute" may be for the townships, and not expressway. I am not sure. Nobody is, this project is like a black-hole, information only goes in, never comes out!

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I am not aware of any IRC specifications for how much land is to be allocated. I am not sure if IRC goes into that. Land requirements depend on the carriageway and associated buffer.Technical drawings of the design are used to come up with the numbers and the drawings are used by the authorities to validate the claim and then matched against survey numbers based on the alignment. 

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what exactly do 8000 or 7000 acres mean for a 134 km long expressway?

We will have to ask an expert for that answer. But, I am not sure they were all only for expressway. NICE had always wanted land for townships also as per FWA. I am not sure what were the townships that were to come up and what were the master plans for that. only RTI on how land requirements were estimated will tell.

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Yes IDS. Land is for expressway + the townships. But at least the expressway part should be clear via standards. Township needs - don't know if there would have been a formula for that, but thats a good question to ask - how they arrived at the numbers.

We have heard and read ESG/Leo Saldhana's story. We have been reading small drops of information in these news reports. But haven't heard NICE's story well enough. Can't be that they don't have a defense or "spin" on this excess land row.

On the job - will hunt his contacts and organize a Praja meeting. BTW, don't brand me pro or anti NICE yet. I only want to know, know it a little deeper than these newsmedia reports. Just curious.

These large PPPs, neither here or there. Our state must to learn to perfect them.

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If we are still being taken for a ride in PPP's i wont be surprised if there have been certain discrepancies 13 years ago when PPP was new. Having said that we have held the general populace hostage by holding up the road development while trying to do the good thing. We should be able to get the road developed and then fix the rest of the issues in parellel. 

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According to initial proposal there would be an expressway between BLR & Mysore, a PRR around BLR and 5 townships. Bidadi, R'nagara, C'patna, and two near Mysore. What raised flags was when NICE sold lands for acquired for PRR(including interchange) for the machine tools association for a convention center near tumkur road. since then a slew of projects have been announced along the PRR including a film city and a park, not mention sites and rehabilitation of land losing villagers along or in the vicinity of the PRR. That is the critical question. How do these lands figure in the expressway, PRR and township scheme? IIRC all the recent petitions have een for lands around the PRR. none of the recent petitions for townships.

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