NICE road

If the administration has its way, the encroached parts will be demolished, forcing NICE to change its expressway alignment, officials have saidThe Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) faces the threat of demolition and realignment of parts of its expressway for encroaching upon two lakes – Gottigere and Sompura.The district administration has found that two stretches have been built encroaching parts of Gottigere and Sompura lakes and has listed NICE in its list of lake encroachers.If the administration has its way, the encroached parts will be demolished, forcing NICE to change its expressway alignment, officials said.The stretches that come under a cloud now are the stretch between NICE's clover leaf junction and Kanakapura Road which encroaches upon Sompura Lake, and the stretch between Bannerghatta Road and Electronic City Road which encroaches upon Gottigere lake.“NICE has constructed roads inside the lakes. That’s wrong. Rules can’t differ with individuals so we are issuing notices in both cases – Sompura and Gottigere,” LC Nagaraj, assistant commissioner, Bangalore south division, Bengaluru Urban, told Bangalore Mirror. “They have acquired excess land on both left and the right side of the roads. They haven’t acquired land as per their necessity, be it 200 feet or 300 feet. In both cases, lake area has been encroached to an extent of about half a kilometre. They could have deviated from the lake area.”Gottigere (bearing survey number 71 in Uttarahalli hobli, which was 37 acres 13 guntas) is found to have been encroached by theand a few other private people. The other individuals named in Gottigere lake encroachment include one Dinesh, Girish, GK Rajanna, MK Babu, Basappa, Shekar and Lalithamma. The administration found that Sompura Lake, in survey number 11 of Kengeri hobli which was originally 17 acres 38 guntas, was also encroached upon by NICE. A survey will be carried out to finalise the extent of encroachment and decide on removals (read demolition) shortly.Nagaraj said that firstly, they would be writing to %Karnataka Industries Area Development Board (KIADB) directing them to ask NICE to shift as it is in the lake areas so that we could bring lakes back to its original form. “If they won’t, then we will write to NICE,” he said.The officials have decided to initiate action to recover the original lake area. If KIADB and NICE don’t act, then the administration will have no option but to carry out clearance as its being done across city, the officials added.Bangalore south division officials’ recent report on lake encroachments in and around Bengaluru – which was the basis of one of the large-scale demolition drives the city has witnessed of late – wherein encroachments from city’s Sarakki, Jaraganahalli and Puttenahalli lakes were removed, also include statuses of both Gottigere and Sompura lakes, a senior official told Bangalore Mirror.The extent of encroachment being huge, the administration has decided to initiate tough action to reclaim the lake land, senior officials told Bangalore Mirror.NICE has rubbished the charges of lake encroachment. NICE managing director, Ashok Kheny said they had not encroached any part of the lakes. He maintained that the expressway was constructed after High Court approving their alignment after looking into the lake issues.“Sompura Lake is pretty far from our road. In Gottigere Lake, we had to go on the lake, but we did not go on the lake. We have gone on the side of the lake. It was said that we will block the flow of the water. So we put culverts. We went on a court-approved plan. High Court has approved it after extensive studies. The issue of lakes came up with respect to two lakes Gottigere Lake and Hosakeralli Lake. We had to be on the side of the lakes in these cases, and our alignment is as per the court directives. Everywhere we have got clearance from the authorities and we are clear in every bit on paper. It took us two years for construction. It’s all court approved alignment and we haven’t encroached any part of the lakes,” Kheny iterated.