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SC orders to draw power line through Western Ghats along existing line
Environmentalists had opposed intrusion into fresh forest areas for the Western Ghat power line project.
PANAJI: The Supreme Court has accepted the recommendations of the Central Empowered Committee that a fresh 440 kV line that is being drawn from Tamnar in Chattisgarh to Goa cutting across the Western Ghats be drawn along the alignment of an existing line rather than encroaching upon virgin forests, a plan that was being opposed by environmentalists.
The Goa Foundation, which filed a complaint before the Central Empowered Committee, a body constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate into complaints related to environmental issues, informed that while CEC’s recommendations on the power line have been accepted, its recommendations on the other two projects, the railway and highway expansion through the Western Ghats that is also being opposed by environmentalists, will be heard at a later date.
“The CEC recommendation of using the 220 kV line alignment for the new 400 kV line alignment has been accepted by the Supreme Court today. The order is not out yet,” said Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares.
“The court could not complete discussion on the other two proposals, which will be taken up on a later date,” Alvares added.
In its report, which was submitted to the Supreme Court, CEC recommended that the Goa-Tamnar 440KV power line be set up along the alignment of the existing powerline so that fresh forest areas are not intruded into.
“CEC is of the considered view that instead of clearing canopy of virgin forest cover along 10.50 km-long corridor with 46m ROW (Right of Way) in Goa state, the proposed 400 kV line should be drawn along the existing 220 kV corridor line in Goa state. This will also ensure that the commitment given by Power Grid and CEA to the Karnataka government that no further transmission line shall be laid in the area is not violated. Most important of all, this modification in the proposal will help in saving the precious forest cover and wildlife in the ecologically fragile and biodiversity rich Western Ghats,” CEC said.
The Goa Tamnar Transmission Project Ltd (GTTPL), a unit of Sterlite Power, that has bagged the project from the Central Electricity Commission to build the line as part of the National Grid had argued that the alignment that they proposed was the ‘best possible’ route as it involved a shorter stretch through the reserve forest.
“The present alignment has an area of 2.51 km passing through the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary while if we were to go by the existing 110 kV Supa Ponda line it will pass through 6.14 km of protected area (Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park) with only six towers being located within the protected area as opposed to 17 towers if one adopted the existing route (as recommended by CEC),” Pitale had said earlier.
The Goa Tamnar Transmission Project Limited (GTTPL) was envisioned to create an additional source of power for the state of Goa which is currently dependent on the Western grid for its power requirements. From the West, Goa is connected through the 400kV Kolhapur-Mapusa transmission line and from the South, through a single 220 kV transmission line.
The power line project is one of th three projects that were granted clearances by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife in April last year alongside the railway double tracking and highway expansion across the Western Ghats that is being opposed by activists in the state.
