What’s making Chandrapur simmer?

Chandrapur faces extreme heat, hitting 45.9°C, amid rapid industrialization and deforestation, raising environmental and health concerns.

CHANDRAPUR: By late morning in peak summer, Chandrapur city starts to resemble a ghost town. As the sun beats down, streets empty, shops shutter and traffic thins. Lately, municipal workers have been driving through the city with water-spraying vehicles to hose down the streets, to bring temperatures down – a futile exercise as the city continues to bake.

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In recent years, peak summer temperatures in Chandrapur have hovered around 45°C. This year the temperature on April 25, the city recorded the highest temperature in five years at 45.9°C. And, according to experts, the worst is yet to come.

So, what’s turning up the heat in the district?

Experts point out that Chandrapur is in the throes of a rapid transformation, a shift that has only accelerated in this remote north-eastern district of Maharashtra, in recent times. The district already hosts more than 30 coal mines; now there’s a concerted push to transform it into a major steel hub. Large infrastructure projects – roads, power and irrigation – are also underway.

While economic gains are obvious, the development agenda appears to have ignored environmental concerns, taking a heavy ecological, and human, toll.

Policymakers, ministers, bureaucrats and industrialists are increasingly eyeing one of Chandrapur’s most valuable natural assets – its forests. With 42% of the district covered in forest, this green expanse is no longer viewed as ecological capital, but as untapped potential for industrial and infrastructure expansion. As a result, large swathes of forest are being routinely diverted for non-forest purposes, and tree felling continues unchecked.

Taking the fall

Consider this: Between 2021 and 2024 alone, 25,063 trees were axed for infrastructure projects In 2024, the go-ahead was given for an irrigation project that will take down a staggering 1.17 lakh trees, while an iron and steel project will fell 18,024 trees in a Tadoba Andhari tiger corridor.

During the same period, between 2021 and 2024, the State Board of Wildlife (SBWL) and the Union environment ministry cleared the diversion of 280 hectares of protected green cover. Government sources reveal that an additional 146 hectares of forest land was recently diverted for industrial and infrastructure projects.

Industrial development in the last two decades has focused on Chandrapur city, Tadadi, Ghughus and Ballarshah. The district already has 33 coal mines and five thermal power plants. It also has four cement plants and five sponge iron plants. There are also four major industrial estates, at Tadadi, Chandrapur, Ghughus and Ballapur, which house 100 major and 200 small industrial units.

The SBWL, a statutory body that advises the state government on wildlife conservation and that has the chief minister as its chairperson, has cleared the Asola Mendha irrigation project, which will divert 315 hectares of forest land in Brahmapuri, Middle Chanda and Chandrapur. A staggering 1.17 lakh trees will be cut.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has submitted a proposal to build a road connecting Nagpur to Chandrapur. A total of 109 hectares of forest land would be diverted for the project, which would see 32,025 trees being felled. The proposal is yet to receive the green signal.

Green ‘opportunity’

In Chandrapur, the disregard for the natural environment is palpable. Hindustan Times visited a site where 1,000 trees were being cut for a power transmission line at Chichpalli in Mul tehsil. The fragrance of freshly cut wood was everywhere, even as fallen trunks lay in clumps all across the landscape, and the sound of the occasional chain saw broke the silence. For the loggers, axing trees is a routine, daily chore. “If the higher-ups had signed off on it, it must be okay,” one of them said.

A forest officer posted in Chandrapur said on condition of anonymity: “Forest land is one of the easiest to divert for non-forestry purposes. Our officers oppose these proposals in the State Wildlife Board, National Wildlife Board, expert advisory committees, but we are silenced. Most government agencies want forest land for infrastructure projects because private land is tougher to acquire.”

Suresh Chopane, a lecturer at the state forest academy and a former member of the regional empowered committee of the Union environment ministry said compensatory afforestation is an eyewash. “For each tree cut, the project implementing agency has to undertake compensatory afforestation and it must be done in the same district. But, in reality, most of the compensatory afforestation is done in far-off districts. One can’t cut trees in Chandrapur and plant new ones in Ratnagiri. That’s not how nature works.”

Human cost

Chopane said rapid industrialisation has already begun to alter the climate in the region. “While factories and plants are releasing greenhouse gases and contributing to rising temperatures, they also add to air pollution due to the fine dust they emit. During winter, these particles remain trapped in the atmosphere, pushing the Air Quality index to 200-300 (poor category). This traps heat, leading to a greenhouse effect,” he said.

The heat is also changing work routines in some offices. R Ramteke, an accounts and administration executive in a private firm, said, “Instead of a 60-miute lunch break, we take a two-hour break and work an hour extra in the evening to compensate for lost time. Our power bills have shot up in the last three years as we have air coolers in all three rooms in our home.’’

Rising temperatures are also fuelling record heat-wave numbers. Between 1951 and 2022, Chandrapur registered 495 instances of heat wave, among the highest for all districts in Maharashtra, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

This is already taking a toll on health. Complaints such as exhaustion, sunstroke, sweating, electrolyte imbalance, fever and fatigue are now common among the people here. Said Dr Madhav Chinchole, Chandrapur’s civil surgeon, “We had six suspected deaths due to heat wave in 2024, but there were no such deaths in 2022 and 2023. This year too, there have been no heat-stroke deaths in Chandrapur. I have issued a directive that people working on farms must stop work after 11 am in summer, but they don’t observe this.”

Fallout on Tadoba

For many, Chandrapur is synonymous with the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, a great place for spotting the striped cats. Spread across 625 sq km, this is Maharashtra’s oldest and largest national park, accounting for 250 of the state’s tiger population of 444 big cats, according to the state forest department.

Tiger country is now feeling the heat. Field director at the reserve and conservator of forests Prabhunath Shukla said that during peak summer, they tweak safari timings, a recent practice here. “We have changed the timings of safaris in the core zone. They are now 5.30 am to 9.30 am, and 3 pm to 7 pm. While the morning safari starts 30 minutes earlier, the evening session starts 30 minutes later. A handful of tourists have also cancelled safaris this year, something we don’t usually see.”

As for the animals, the forest department has installed solar pumps at all watering holes so that they don’t run dry.

But heat stress is only one of the challenges the big cats are struggling with. Infrastructure projects such as roads are being routinely built in the forests, intersecting with tiger corridors that allow the animals to roam between tiger reserves in the region.

“These tiger reserves like Tadoba, Tipeshwar, Pench, Bor, Umred Karandla and Nawegaon-Nagzira are connected via tiger corridors and allow the movement of tigers from one area to another. Now we are creating human corridors in the forests and destroying the tigers’ natural habitat,” said Dr Yogesh Salphale, 55, a wildlife enthusiast who was born and raised in Chandrapur.

All is well, officially

If the vanishing green cover in Chandrapur is increasingly a cause of concern, those responsible for the district’s well-being seem unable to connect the wave of industrialisation to its impact on climate and the environment. Chief Conservator of Forests Jitendra Ramgaonkar dismissed any link between rising temperatures and deforestation, attributing the change instead to “global warming”.

Sudhir Mungantiwar, BJP MLA from Ballarpur in Chandrapur, and forest minister when several mega projects were cleared, is of the same view. “Cutting trees is not a factor in the rise in temperature. When one tree is cut, we plant two.”

Mungantiwar added, “There are many factors that lead to increasing heat. For instance, Chandrapur had just 18 cars in 1978 and now it has lakhs. There are many power stations which have come up in here and so have mines. These cause great heat.”

Industries Minister Uday Samant distanced himself from the district’s declining environmental fortunes, saying, “We play a role in starting industries and our role ends there. There is an environment department, which tackles pollution. Whenever there is a complaint about pollution, we send it to the state pollution control board. Gadchiroli is becoming a steel hub and the ecosystem (transport hub, steel factories, offices of mining industries etc) for this steel hub will be in Chandrapur.”

Chandrapur is included in the state’s climate action plan, being currently formulated. Abhijit Ghorpade, director of the state climate action plan, said, “Chandrapur has many mines and power stations, which contribute to gas emissions. We are setting up a plan for this. Chandrapur has heat waves and we are working on a plan to bring down temperatures. We have selected Chandrapur as it is the most-polluted district too. Nagpur and Yavatmal districts will also be included in the plan.”