Policy analyst urges PM, Environment Minister to halt ecologically destructive PSPs in Western Ghats

By A Representative 

Even as the Karnataka High Court continues its stay on the Rs 10,240 crore Sharavati Valley Pumped Storage Project (PSP), the state government has initiated the tendering process for preparation of a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for another 2,500 MW PSP in the Varahi River Valley — located within the Mookambika and Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuaries. 

This has prompted power and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma to write a detailed representation to the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Vice Chair of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), the Prime Minister in his capacity as Chair of the NBWL, and all members of the Board, seeking urgent intervention.

“There is no technical or economic justification for treating pumped-storage hydro as the default solution to India's energy-storage requirement, particularly where its development entails diversion of natural forests, devastation of Protected Areas, and irreversible impacts on biodiversity,” Sharma, who is based in Sagara in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, has stated in his representation dated August 25, 2026.

The Sharavati Valley PSP, which falls within the Sharavati Valley Lion-Tailed Macaque Sanctuary, has been under a stay order from the Karnataka High Court since March 2026. The interim stay was extended till October 1, 2026, after the Centre informed the court that an expert committee had not approved the project. 

According to media reports, the project requires diversion of around 142 hectares of forest land within the sanctuary. An expert committee has “strongly recommended against approving” the project, flagging ecological risks including tree felling, destruction of natural ecosystems, and prolonged disturbance to wildlife.

Despite this, Sharma has pointed out that substantial public expenditure has already been incurred. Information obtained through RTI from Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) reportedly indicates that substantial payments have been made against seven project-related bills to the already identified EPC contractor over a period of about ten months, even though the requisite statutory clearances for undertaking the project in the Protected Area had not been obtained at the relevant time. 

“Where a major project requires statutory clearances under the environmental, forest and wildlife laws, it would be vastly desirable that substantial irreversible project commitments and expenditure are not undertaken in anticipation of clearances whose outcome remains uncertain,” Sharma has said.

Sharma has also drawn attention to the proposed 1,600 MW PSP in the catchment area of the Malaprabha river in Saundatti taluk of Belgaum district, which seeks diversion of about 160 hectares of forest land. 

“Can we say that the permanent conversion and fragmentation of approximately 160.4 ha of Reserved Forest, together with a total project footprint of approximately 307.4 ha, is environmentally justified when alternative energy-storage technologies capable of providing comparable grid-balancing services are available with substantially lower ecological footprints?” he has asked.

The Western Ghats of Karnataka already contain a substantial concentration of hydropower projects, reservoirs, canals, roads, transmission corridors, plantations and other infrastructure, Sharma has noted. 

“One of the greatest ecological risks of PSP construction in the Western Ghats is the fragmentation rather than simply forest-area loss of huge biodiversity rich landscape. A relatively modest permanent forest diversion can have disproportionately large ecological consequences if roads, portals, powerhouses, transmission lines and construction facilities divide an otherwise continuous ecologically rich forest,” he has said.

The timing of these proposals, Sharma has argued, is particularly significant because it appears to indicate a continuing policy preference for large conventional pumped-storage infrastructure even in ecologically sensitive landscapes, “without, at the threshold, adequately demonstrating why less environmentally intrusive alternatives such as Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) cannot meet the same grid-management and energy-storage objectives.” 

He has pointed to the rapid evolution of BESS technology and the Union Government's recent policy support for BESS, including viability-gap funding, as evidence that battery storage is increasingly recognised as an important component of India's future electricity system. 

“For short- and medium-duration storage applications, authoritative international and Indian assessments increasingly demonstrate the competitiveness of BESS. Accordingly, BESS and other less ecologically intrusive alternatives, such as demand side management, should be mandatorily evaluated before permitting PSPs in Protected Areas and other ecologically sensitive landscapes,” he has stated.

Sharma has also highlighted the broader context of the seven successive draft notifications issued by the Union government since 2011 to declare parts of the Western Ghats as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA). The latest draft notification, issued on July 27, 2026, proposes to include 56,825 square kilometres across six states as ESA. 

“The preamble to these seven Gazette notifications, which have elaborated the critical importance of the WGs to the overall ecological welfare of the country and of the peninsular India in particular, alone should be adequate to the criticality of conserving this world heritage mountain range,” Sharma has said. “But the ease with which the forest lands, and even the PAs in these WGs, are being seen as allowed for diversion in the name of scores of developmental projects, is also being seen by many sections of the society as a direct contradiction to the letter and spirit of the above-mentioned Gazette notifications.”

Sharma has also referred to a recent Public Interest Litigation filed by a group of retired forest and wildlife officials and conservationists in the Delhi High Court, which has stated that the NBWL Standing Committee approved 97 per cent of 2,186 project proposals between 2014 and 2026, leading to the diversion of at least 95,724 hectares of forest land, including multiple parcels within Protected Areas. 

“This indicates a lack of 'procedural rigour' which led to the diversion of at least 95,724 hectares of forest land, including multiple parcels of forest lands within PAs, with little ecological scrutiny,” Sharma has said.

Sharma has urged the government to consider a holistic view of the true relevance of PSPs in the ecologically critical Western Ghats, and to objectively consider other credible options such as BESS and demand-side management, which together can meet all the stated objectives of PSPs. 

“The Western Ghats are an irreplaceable national ecological asset. Their natural forests, rivers, wildlife habitats and biodiversity cannot be recreated once substantially destroyed,” he has said.

He has also pointed to two harsh realities that should be at the centre of policy focus: the forest and tree cover in the country is only about 21 per cent of the total land area, as against the National Forest Policy target of 33 per cent; and the total area under the legal protection of Protected Areas is only about 4 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. “Even these tiny landscapes are not totally free from the associated threats due to the unsustainable demand growth pressure in the name of infrastructure projects,” he has said.

Sharma has made four specific requests: an early and reasoned decision on the Sharavati PSP, preferably rejecting the clearances to save entirely avoidable ecological damage and unnecessary public expenditure; a direction that no irreversible project activity or substantial commitment be undertaken for the Varahi and Saundatti PSPs until their ecological implications have been independently and comprehensively assessed; formulation of a national policy framework discouraging large PSPs in river valleys, Protected Areas and other irreplaceable biodiversity landscapes; and a policy framework to minimise the need for grid-level storage through demand-side management, time-of-day tariffs, and widespread deployment of distributed BESS.