Government considering taking over NICE road to put an end to controversy

BENGALURU: The Congress government is preparing to put an end to the controversy over NICE road, which has been hanging fire for two and a half-decades. The issue is was in the news recently after Janata Dal (Secular) patriarch and former PM H D Deve Gowda and former CM H D Kumaraswamy raking up the issue. Now, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has instructed officials to give him entire details about the project.

The government is thinking about taking over NICE Road or handing over the investigation to the CBI under the Money Laundering Act and an order is likely to be issued within a week. The NICE road project has been embroiled in a series of controversies over the last two-and-a-half decades.

In 2016, a House Committee headed by Congress leader T B Jayachandra had submitted a report to the government on irregularities in the NICE project. The report said that NICE violated norms in many cases and was involved in a large-scale scam.

The report recommended to the government to take over NICE Road or hand it over to the CBI for investigation under the Money Laundering Act. Jayachandra is learnt to have started pressuring the government to take action, and the CM has instructed the officials to prepare a detailed report in this regard.