Karjat Torrent Power Tree Felling: What Is Known and What Is Not
Image: Shubhamtakode / Wikimedia Commons
Posts claiming that tens of thousands of trees are being cut inside the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary for a Torrent Power project spread across X and WhatsApp this weekend, after Aaditya Thackeray and Rohit Pawar took up the issue on 24 October. The short answer: a Maharashtra Forest Department order dated 14 October does allow 32,490 trees to be felled for Torrent Power’s 3,000 MW Saidongar-I pumped storage project in Karjat taluka of Raigad district, but the project’s own filings place the site about 15 km from the sanctuary, and the department says no felling is taking place inside it.
Confirmed: A Felling Order for 32,490 Trees
Confirmed. The order, signed by Karjat Division Forest Officer Sameer Shinde on 14 October, permits 32,490 trees to be cut in the Saidongar forest area, according to The Times of India and the Free Press Journal, which reported on the document. The project needs 233 hectares of forest land and 144 hectares of other land across Pali, Saidongar, Ambot, Dhak and Bhaliwadi villages, according to the executive summary Torrent filed with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board for the public hearing. It will have a hilltop upper reservoir and a 59-metre dam on the Pej river.
That summary put the number of trees to be cut at about 48,000, higher than the figure in the October order. Neither the department nor Torrent has explained the difference publicly.
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Not Correct: Felling Inside Bhimashankar Sanctuary
Not supported by the record. The executive summary says the site is about 15 km from the sanctuary and outside its notified eco-sensitive zone, so no wildlife clearance was needed. The Forest Department said in a statement on 24 October that no illegal felling was taking place inside the sanctuary. Torrent said on Sunday that all project parts lie about 16 km away and that no work is planned near the Bhimashankar temple.
Rohit Pawar, the NCP (SP) MLA, has not claimed the site is inside the sanctuary; he says it adjoins it. He has warned that the count “will climb to a lakh” and called the felling “an end of an entire ecosystem”. Villagers told reporters cutting had begun in Saidongar and Pali; the department has not addressed that claim.
Still Open: Trees, Hills and a 3 November Date
Unconfirmed. Pawar says tunnel blasting could weaken hills in a district that saw the Irshalwadi landslide; no official assessment of that risk has been made public. The Free Press Journal reported that the felling order mentions a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lay the foundation stone on 3 November; the Prime Minister’s Office has not announced it. Torrent says it has handed 253 hectares of private land with about 70,000 trees to the Forest Department as compensatory afforestation. The NGO NatConnect has asked the Union environment ministry to review the project. IPB has covered India’s pumped storage push and other daily updates.
Source: Saidongar-I project executive summary, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. Also based on reporting by Free Press Journal, ThePrint / PTI and Pune Pulse.
Image: Shubhamtakode / Wikimedia Commons (Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary, not the project site).
