BENGALURU: The Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd (KPCL) has submitted its application to the Centre for recommendation of geotechnical studies/survey for its ambitious 2000 MW Sharavathi pumped storage project in Shivamogga district. The survey project will involve drilling operations and felling of trees in the most verdant, inaccessible and dense forests of Western Ghats. Further, these operations will have to be done inside the Sharavathi Lion Tailed Macaque Wildlife Sanctuary that was recently notified for protecting the critically endangered species. The LTMs are found only in the Western Ghats in the world.
These studies will involve exploratory drilling operations to know the geological conditions of the substrata for finalizing the location/other details of the pumped storage project that will consume 25 per cent more power to generate electricity to meet demand during peak hours of the day.
The survey and drilling project area will be spread over 877.50 hectares of Sharavathi LTM Wildlife Sanctuary. Since the time the project was proposed, environmentalists and activists have opposed it and said it will sound the death knell for Western Ghats, the birthplace of many rivers and habitat of rare and native flora and fauna. With so many other developmental projects already in the pipeline and many road projects ongoing in the World’s Biodiversity Hot Spot, they say the area proposed for geotechnical studies is in the dense forested regions of Honnavar and Sagar taluks and may prove to be an ecological disaster.
Shankar Sharma, power policy analyst, said, “The rich biodiversity of about 153 hectares inside the sanctuary will be affected. Why even the survey and studies in a highly eco-sensitive area of a recently notified sanctuary should be permitted if the real objective is not to allow the project implementation? Instead of increasing the forest cover of the state to 33 per cent, the state government is ignoring the critical need to explore all possible alternatives.”
V Chandrashekar, Chief Engineer (Electrical Design]), KPCL, has filed the application for seeking clearance from the Standing Committee of National Board of Wildlife. The proposal for carrying out exploratory drill holes will incur a cost Rs 4 crore for a period of two years. Out of this, the survey will be carried out in 877 hectares inside Sharavathi WL sanctuary while another 146 hectares outside the PA. The work will involve tree felling and earthwork inside the sanctuary. For the drilling operations, an area of 2mx3m is required for digging boreholes inside the PA. KPCL promises not to build any new roads as the drilling equipment will be carried manually to the drilling sites by their personnel. And 12 out of 15 boreholes will be dug inside the sanctuary. This is to study the soil and rock types while the samples will be packed in aluminum trunks and carried back manually.
The project proponents say that only minimum land for roads, tunnel entrance portals and other things are required on the surface and at these locations “only the forest cover” will be removed. Further, KPCL says project components like water conducting system, power house complex, transformer cavern, surge shafts, switch yard etc are proposed as underground structures and there will be no impact on the ‘forest cover’ of LTM sanctuary. Only the tunnel / audit entrance portal, roads and the muck disposal / quarry sites are exposed to the ground surface and affect the forests.
WHAT KPCL SAYS
Out of the estimated 153 ha of land required for the project, 93 ha are unaffected as the project will be located below the forest cover, according to KPCL. The remaining 60 ha of land that affects the surface area (tree cover) about 25 ha (15 + 10) of land is required during the construction period of the project (for a period of 60 months) and the same would be restored/replanted with saplings after the construction activities. Only about 35 ha for construction of new roads and tunnel /audit portal entrances would affect the forest permanently.