6 months ago
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Following a bid of protests opposing the Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project successful the Western Ghats, a squad of officers representing the Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd. (KPCL), the task implementing agency, defended it, stating that the task would beryllium executed by acquiring minimum wood area.
The squad led by Shilpa D. Raj, Chief Engineer (Civil Design) of KPCL, made a presumption connected the task and interacted with the media successful Shivamogga connected Monday.
The KPCL, the officers said, had been moving connected the task since 2017 and approached the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change for environment, forest, and wildlife clearances. The task had received in-principle support from the National Board for Wildlife. The process for wood clearance and situation clearance was going on.
The intent of the task was to make 2,000 MW of powerfulness utilising 2 existing reservoirs successful the Sharavathi valley. “The outgo of the task and infrastructural requirements would person gone importantly higher, starring to large-scale deforestation, if the task were to beryllium implemented elsewhere. We are taking up the task here, arsenic we person Talakalale and Gerusoppa reservoirs constructed decades ago,” said V.M. Vijay Kumar, Executive Engineer, who made a presumption connected the project.
"When excess powerfulness is available, we volition pump h2o from Gerusoppa to Talakalale to store 0.37 TMC of water. It volition service arsenic a imaginable vigor source, by utilizing which we volition make 2,000 MW for implicit six hours to conscionable the vigor requirements astatine highest hours,” said the officer.
The project, arsenic designed, would necessitate 142 hectares of onshore and would request to chopped 16,000 trees. However, the Wildlife Board asked the bureau to trim the fig of trees. “After reworking the plan, we tin prevention different 3,500 trees. We are conveying the aforesaid to the Board,” the serviceman said. He further said that the KPCL had responded to the objections raised by Praneetha Paul, Deputy Inspector General of Forest (DIGF), who inspected the tract and sent filed a study not favouring the project.
The KPCL, successful consultation with the Forest Department, has projected to conception greenish canopies astatine the task tract to let the question of the lion-tailed macaque, an endangered species. “The Forest Department has identified the places wherever the animals move. Similarly, we volition conception culverts arsenic portion of the carnal transition plan,” Mr. Vijay Kumar stated.
Water flow
The officer, reacting to apprehensions astir the project’s interaction connected the travel of h2o successful the Sharavathi valley, the serviceman said that the task would necessitate lone 0.37 TMC of h2o pumped once. The aforesaid could beryllium utilised for the adjacent 60 years. “Every rainy season, the Linganmakki Dam collects astir 151 TMC of water. Throughout the year, h2o is released to the stream aft generating powerfulness astatine Sharavathi Generating Station, Mahatma Gandhi Hydroelectric Station, Linganmakki Dam Power House, and Gerusoppa Dam Power House. The stream travel volition not beryllium affected,” helium added.
M. Madesh, Chief Engineer (Civil), H.R. Ramesh, Chief Engineer (Electrical), and Suresh K., Superintending Engineer of KPTCL, were contiguous astatine the property conference.
