Ashok Kheny: Simply Mr Nice

Ashok Kheny, the founder and MD of NICE Ltd, has over 33 years of experience in the area of engineering, designing and construction of major projects for the transportation, infrastructure and telecommunication industries in USA.
Kheny hails from Kheny Ranjol, a village going by his ancestral name in Bidar district of North Karnataka. In the year 1969 he set off to the USA and got his master's degree in management science and engineering from Woster Polytechnic (Woster, Massachusetts). Kheny began his career in Penn Central (later Conrail, a railway company in the US) in the year 1974. In 1979, he quit Penn Central and started his own company SAB Engineering and Constructions Inc. and Railway Systems Design Inc. (RSD). In the next seven years, SAB implemented some of the prestigious projects in California, New York, Florida, Detroit and Massachusetts.
Kheny was responsible for several major infrastructure projects in the USA, including engineering and construction of the Boston Blue Line Rapid Transit Signal and Communication system, Detroit People Mover, Philadelphia Center City Rail tunnel, Seattle Transit System, rehabilitation of Grand Central Station in New York city among dozens of key infrastructure projects in USA. Kheny has been Project Director for an 800 miles fiber optic cable design and construction project for US Telecom, which involved extensive coordination with more than a hundred local, federal and state agencies. The project required the crossing of over 400 bridge structures, rivers and water bodies and major roadway crossings.
However his first project was an astounding effort on a fiber optic cable network between Washington D.C. and Jacksonville (Florida) spanning some 1,250 km laid in three months flat and Building the first and only people mover transit system using linear induction motors in Detroit, then came building the first trans-Atlantic fiber network between New York City and Los Angeles (alongside the railway line).
The US administration recognized Kheny's contribution and in 1987 President Ronald Reagan honored Kheny with the 'Outstanding Businessman of the Year of a Minority Community Award'. By 1993, Kheny had made a fortune from SAB's success

The tryst with Karnataka started when he sold portions of his business in US and decided to retire. His first project in the state was the bypass road near Dharwad city, but a project like BMIC was his original passion. Mr. Ashok Kheny has successfully completed & commissioned the Hubli-Dharwad Bypass Project, the first grade separated and access controlled 30.35 KM length  BOT Project in the India (Date of commencement: May 1998.  Date of completion:  October 2000).  He has contributed many innovative designs and controlled the overall project.
Ashok Kheny's innovative designs & capabilities are being utilized for the development of Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP), the biggest BOOT Project in India.  He has guided the team of IIIE Engineers to complete the design and engineering of BMICP.  The construction of BMICP has commenced and sections of the project have been opened for traffic.