Lessons from Leveraging Land: A Case of Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor

Abstract

Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor pioneered the idea of leveraging land for revenue generation to make a project viable. The project was conceived as early as 1988. It had the twin objectives of (i) connecting Bangalore and Mysore (two rapidly growing cities in Karnataka) with an expressway and (ii) developing the infrastructure around the periphery of Bangalore city and the expressway. The project generated many controversies centred around land acquisition including the quantum of land, number of places for land acquisition, number of families affected, and the compensation package. These issues were further escalated due to frequent changes in political leadership in the state. This paper discusses the events which have spanned over two decades and brings out the key learnings in leveraging land as a revenue generation instrument.