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A rare meeting between citizens, the Forest Department, KPCL, and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) brought critical questions surrounding the Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project (PSP) and Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary into the open. The discussions raised broader questions about transparency, environmental governance, and whether government agencies themselves are adhering to the very laws they are entrusted to enforce.
On 2 Jun 2026, Â Central Empowered Committee (CEC) member Sunil Limaye visited Shivamogga and met with citizens to discuss issues relating to forests and wildlife sanctuaries in the district.
We had the opportunity to present our findings on the proposed Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project and also on the ongoing CEC case concerning the denotification of Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary.
Mr. Limaye heard our submissions patiently for nearly two and a half hours. Senior Forest Department officials and engineers from Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) were also present.
Such meetings are rare. It is not often that citizens, the Forest Department, and project proponents sit across the same table and openly discuss.
On one of the points we presented with respect to Sharavathi PSP, KPCL made extensive efforts to explain that the figure of 18,000 tonnes of industrial explosives mentioned in the project documents was merely a typographical error, and that the correct figure was 1,800 tonnes and that the whole explosives thing was not toxic at all. We were further informed that additional details would not be disclosed for security reasons.
Should citizens simply accept the “typographical error” explanation? Blasting with industrial explosives has major impacts on the evergreen rainforest within a protected wildlife sanctuary. Are we expected to ignore these impacts in the name of security? Withholding such information is akin to asking a doctor to diagnose a patient while withholding the medical records.
Another question we asked was this: given the vast tracts of evergreen rainforest submerged by KPCL’s hydropower projects since the 1960s, has KPCL or the Forest Department recreated an evergreen rainforest anywhere as compensation? KPCL nodded: “No.”
This is an important admission. Once an old-growth evergreen rainforest is destroyed, it cannot simply be recreated elsewhere through plantations or compensatory afforestation. The loss is effectively permanent on any meaningful human timescale.
Apart from all of this, what was striking was the apparent disregard for the law displayed by both departments. KPCL’s position seemed to be that any land can be acquired, regardless of statutory constraints. Equally troubling was the attitude of the Forest Department, whose mandate is to protect forests and wildlife, yet which often appeared more focused on facilitating the transfer of protected land to KPCL.
This raises a larger question: What does governance look like when government agencies themselves fail to respect the laws enacted by the State? If those entrusted with implementing the law do not follow it, then who exactly is the law for?
And when citizens try to ensure that the Government upholds those very laws, are we merely “stalling” projects, as the Chief Justice of India famously remarked ? Are we acting against the national interest?
