These days, when facing opposition over satellite town SEZ plans from Congress(I), HDK frequently refers to the "Rs 10/acre/year" giveaway offered to NICE for BMIC project. And the funny thing is that it was HDK's father Mr Deve Gowda who signed the MoU for this project back in 1995 (Source - NICE page. Does anyone know if he was a signatory to the Rs 10/acre/year deal as well?)
Yep, the project has been controversial. Surf around on the web and you find a mix of negative voices (ESG, Indiatogether) and some positive notes though far (BusinessWeek, Sep 2005 - what do they know!?) and few (Indian Express, Oct 2005). Not knowledgeable enough yet to take a side myself, but I notice that this project might be losing a bit of its relevance.