Opposition to the proposed PRR-NICE link road near Madavara intensified on Sunday after Union minister and Janata Dal (Secular) state president HD Kumaraswamy urged affected residents to unite and protest against a plan that families fear could displace them from their homes and livelihoods.
The proposed project is a 3km NICE-Tumakuru Road PRR-1 integration link. It is intended to connect the upcoming Peripheral Ring Road-1, also referred to as the Bengaluru Business Corridor, with NICE Road. NICE Road already intersects Tumakuru Road at Madanayakanahalli.
Kumaraswamy made the appeal at a public meeting in Thotadaguddadahalli village off Tumakuru Road, attended by nearly 2,000 people. Residents said nearly 1,000 families could be affected and that around 330 properties fall within the notified stretch.
The Union minister accused Chief Minister DK Shivakumar of supporting Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises, or NICE, at the expense of affected residents. He alleged that Shivakumar, who was urban development minister and chairman of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Area Planning Authority in 2003-04, had flouted provisions of the framework agreement to benefit NICE owners.
Kumaraswamy also alleged that farmers whose land was acquired for the project had not received compensation even after several decades. He referred to observations by the Karnataka High Court concerning NICE and announced plans to visit more than 50 villages affected by land acquisition for different projects on October 2.
The proposed visit will begin at Madavara in northwest Bengaluru and extend to areas up to Electronics City, according to the report. The announcement places the PRR-NICE link road within a wider mobilisation over land acquisition and compensation across Bengaluru’s expanding infrastructure network.
Residents at the meeting raised concerns about the process used to identify affected properties. Kala Chandrashekhar, an affected resident, said families feared being removed from their homes by the Bengaluru Development Authority. She alleged that no on-ground survey had been conducted and that the BDA’s notification was based on satellite surveys rather than an assessment of the impact on residents.
Chandrashekhar further alleged that the NICE integration was a new plan involving officials and middlemen rather than part of the original Peripheral Ring Road project. She said residents had been told that compensation could be deposited in court and that acquisition could proceed even if property owners did not agree.
Another resident, identified as Sharath, questioned the proposed alignment. He said government land located next to the alignment had not been considered, while the same land was later converted into layouts and sold within two months. These claims were made by residents at the public meeting and were not independently established in the supplied report.
The land required for PRR-1 was notified in 2007, while the land required for the integration stretch was notified in 2022. The final notification for the integration was issued in June 2026, after the BDA finalised tenders for the first PRR-1 package in March. The next developments will depend on the authorities’ response to residents’ objections, the land acquisition process and Kumaraswamy’s proposed October 2 village visits.
