Power and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma has written to Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, asking the Karnataka government to review its development priorities in light of recurring drought, water stress and ecological degradation. Sharma, who is based in Sagara in the Western Ghats, also sent a copy to the Chief Secretary with a request that it be circulated to all ministers.
Sharma's representation opens with the scale of this year's drought. Of the state's 240 taluks, 217 have been declared drought-affected, and the estimated economic loss of Rs 46,324 crore has been recorded in 177 of them. He noted that the state faces a difficult seven to eight months before the next monsoon. "Whereas, the drought like scenario has not been a new phenomenon to the state, the frequency with which our people are suffering due to such a scenario has been increasing," he wrote.
He pointed to what he called structural vulnerabilities, citing a Karnataka State Pollution Control Board report that found nearly 77 per cent of the state arid or semi-arid and about 54 per cent drought-prone, with forest and tree cover below 22 per cent. Karnataka has no significant fossil-fuel reserves, he said, and is ranked the second-most water-stressed state after Rajasthan, according to World Bank assessments.
Sharma argued that the Western Ghats, which he said account for over 65 per cent of the state's forest area, should be treated as climate infrastructure and not only as a forestry concern. Their conservation, he said, "should therefore be viewed as a climate mitigation strategy of the highest order rather than merely as a forestry issue."
Central to his proposals is a requirement that major projects undergo a technology-neutral alternatives assessment, asking whether a project is "the least-cost and least-impact means of delivering the required public service," and counting full life-cycle costs including financing, land acquisition, forest diversion, water needs and decommissioning. For projects in the Western Ghats, he wants climate, geological, cumulative-impact, water-security and disaster-risk assessments, among others.
He called for an independent, transparent review of several proposals, including the Sharavathi, Varahi, Saundatti and Narihalla pumped storage projects, the Hubballi–Ankola and Talaguppa–Sirsi–Hubballi railway proposals, the Mekedatu project, major transmission corridors, nuclear power proposals, river-linking schemes and large data centres. Sharma stressed the review should not prejudge outcomes. The state should examine whether battery energy storage can provide services now sought from new pumped-storage plants, before committing ecologically sensitive land.
On energy and industry, Sharma was critical of several current directions. "Importing more coal to increase power production; projecting the state as a hub for Data Centres; additional nuclear power plants, even through SMRs; energy and water intensive industrial/economic activities etc. will add a lot more to our sustainability concerns," he wrote, adding that the data-centre push raises concerns over land, water and energy.
He proposed a planning hierarchy that begins with efficiency and optimising existing infrastructure, then conservation and demand-side measures, then decentralised solutions and brownfield options over greenfield ones. Major greenfield projects should be approved only after showing there is no substantially lower-impact alternative.
Sharma also urged that the KSPCB's climate consultation report, based on 21 consultations across 19 thematic sectors and reportedly more than 600 recommendations, be placed before the Karnataka Net Zero Task Force. He asked for statewide stakeholder consultations and measurable district- and region-specific resilience strategies, and requested an opportunity to present his suggestions to the task force.
He closed with a proposed guiding principle for the state: "Maximum societal benefit with minimum ecological disruption and minimum long-term public cost."
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