India built its tiger protection law on the promise of vigilance. That promise is being quietly dismantled. The Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project in Karnataka cuts through one of the Western Ghats’ most critical tiger corridors, revealing how the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) is weakening the very legal shield meant to guard wild tigers.
In 2006, Parliament amended the Wildlife (Protection) Act to establish the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Its mandate was clear: ensure that tiger reserves and the areas linking them are not diverted for unsustainable purposes. Section 38-O(1)(g) was drafted precisely to prevent projects like Sharavathi from proceeding without NTCA’s advice. That safeguard is now shamefully being bypassed.
Sharavathi
The Sharavathi Pumped Storage Project—2,000 MW of hydropower inside the Sharavathi Valley Lion-Tailed Macaque Sanctuary—requires felling over 15,000 trees. The dam and tunnels slice through a corridor connecting Kali Tiger Reserve to Sharavathi Valley Sanctuary, a route used not only by tigers but also by endangered lion-tailed macaques. Fragmenting this habitat will sever canopy connectivity and isolate populations that depend on continuous forest cover.
Despite these risks, the National Board for Wildlife granted in-principle clearance without NTCA’s mandatory input. The project has already reached the Forest Advisory Committee, advancing on parallel tracks that sidestep statutory oversight. The law does not allow such discretion—NTCA’s advice is a legal precondition, not an optional formality. Proceeding without it is a violation, not a “procedural lapse”. Deccan Herald first exposed how these clearances moved forward despite explicit legal requirements.
This is not an isolated failure. In 2016, the MoEF&CC’s regional office cleared the Kaiga–Bare road widening through a tiger corridor without NTCA or NBWL review. The same happened with National Highway-766E, cutting through another Western Ghats corridor. Local forest officers argued the land was “not recognised” as a corridor, despite its inclusion in maps by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and NTCA. Each such approval chips away at the authority designed to prevent exactly this kind of ecological vandalism.
MoEF&CC’s Quiet Complicity
The ministry’s own committees are now treating NTCA’s opinion as optional. This isn’t administrative slippage—it’s deliberate dismantling. Allowing megaprojects to bypass NTCA nullifies Parliament’s intent and undermines the rule of law. The ministry that should defend tigers has become an enabler for their habitat’s destruction.
Karnataka hosts India’s second-largest tiger population. Its forest corridors between Kali, Sharavathi, Bhadra and Nagarhole are ecological arteries. Block them, and genetic exchange stops; reserves become biological islands. Once connectivity breaks, conflict rises and extinction risk accelerates.
When officials claim that other institutions can “handle” impact assessment, they ignore why NTCA was created in the first place: to bring independent, science-based oversight free from state or corporate pressure. Corridors are not administrative conveniences; they are lifelines. Without them, tiger numbers—no matter how high on paper—become meaningless.
Legal Shield or Paper Tiger?
The NTCA was meant to be the tiger’s legal armour. Its silence today turns that armour into paper. If Sharavathi proceeds, it sets a precedent for every dam, highway, and transmission line waiting in queue. Fragmentation will spread, and with it, the illusion of progress measured in megawatts instead of living ecosystems.
Karnataka once led the world in tiger conservation. If it allows this project, that legacy collapses. The issue goes beyond one corridor: it is about whether India’s environmental governance can still uphold its own laws.
What Must Change
First, MoEF&CC must restore NTCA’s binding role. No project within a tiger reserve or tiger corridor should reach NBWL or the Forest Advisory Committee without NTCA’s written advice. Second, illegal clearances already granted—including Sharavathi and Kaiga–Bare—must be reviewed and, if necessary, revoked. Third, NTCA itself must reclaim its authority and speak publicly when sidelined. Silence is complicity.
True conservation is not measured in clearance speed but in ecological continuity. The Sharavathi Valley embodies what India stands to lose: forest intelligence built over millennia, reduced to rubble for short-term energy targets.
Unless Parliament’s safeguards are honoured and accountability restored, India’s tiger landscape will fracture beyond repair—and the watchdog will remain muzzled.
Source: Deccan Herald | India
Photo: Deccan Herald | India
