Karnataka Government Rejects Proposal for Goa Power Transmission Line Through Western Ghats Forest

Goa’s proposal to draw a power transmission line through Karnataka’s Western Ghats Forest by the Goa Tamnar Transmission Project Ltd. (GTTPL) has been rejected by the Karnataka Government. ACS forest department in consultation with the Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre rejected and directed to lay the line through non-forested areas instead. The K’taka government has also ordered a show cause notice to forest department officials who had recommended the project and overlooked the destruction of large tracts of forested areas in the Ghats.

As per the advantages of the project, this will meet Goa’s power demand for 15-20 years. Through this project, there will also be an exchange of 1200 MW of Solar Power between K’taka Goa grids. Before reaching South Goa, the transmission line is aligned to pass through three districts of K’taka, namely, Dharwad, Belagavi, and North Kannada. The length of this power transmission line is 77km. and the length of the forest line would be 31 km. and the length of the tiger reserve line would be 6km. This project would affect a total of 72k trees.

Planning to light up parts of South Goa by sourcing power from Tamnar in Chattisgarh, GTTPL had taken permission from Karnataka to divert 174.6 hectares of forest land, including the Kali Tiger Reserve to lay a 400 KV Transmission line. While the user agency is yet to get a clearance from the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL). GTTPL had submitted a realignment of the line to avoid taking it through the dense forests. Unexpectedly, the deputy conservator of forest from Dharwad, Hariyal and Dandeli had recommended the diversion proposal but their Belagavi counterpart rejected it citing ecological destruction.  GTTPL had planned the transmission line from Karnataka Dharwad’s Narendra Village by tapping the present 44kV Narendra line of the Power Grid Corporation of India, linking the 400/200 kV sub-station at Xeldom in Goa.