28 August,2026 05:33 PM IST | Mumbai | Ranjeet Jadhav
The proposed project will be built upstream on the Kalu River. Pics/Avinash Harad
An independent biodiversity survey has exposed major discrepancies in the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed 1500-MW Malshej Ghat-Bhorande Pumped Storage Project.
A young professional, Jehu Nadar from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Mumbai regional station, first flagged the error, while Wildlife conservationist and former Honorary Wildlife Warden Avinash Harad revealed that an independent survey recorded 777 species - including 94 Western Ghats endemics and 193 species listed under Schedule I and Schedule II of the Wildlife Protection Act, 2022.
[popcorn number="Aug 21" desc="Day when the public hearing was scheduled" class="Default"]
In contrast, the Draft EIA listed only a fraction of these, recording just seven butterfly species and omitting critical wildlife.
Nadar alleged that the Draft EIA acknowledges that primary fish sampling could not be conducted in various stretches of the river. Instead, its fish list was sourced from a 2016 study of "Kalu Dam" at Dhawalpuri in Parner taluka, Ahmednagar district, about 150 km from the Kalu River at Murbad. He said this was a different water body with different ecological characteristics.
Questions have also been raised over cumulative water demand. The Kalu River system already has proposals including the Kalu Dam Water Supply Project, the 1150-MW NHPC Kalu Pumped Storage Project and the THDC Malshej Ghat Pumped Storage Project.
Harad told mid-day, "The Draft EIA does not disclose an equivalent cumulative impact assessment, despite an earlier regulatory direction concerning another project on the same river system."
The project proposes diversion of 60.8767 hectares of forest land. Affected villages comprise about 93 per cent Scheduled Tribe population, with Bhorande entirely tribal. The objection document states that the EIA does not disclose the status of Forest Rights Act settlement or a Gram Sabha consent process.
Harad also alleged that the Draft EIA does not address the documented history of reservoir-induced seismic activity in the Bhatsa region since 1983 or geological faults identified along the Kalu basin.
Jehu Nadar, CMFRI
âWhen an EIA records just seven butterfly species from nearly 200 hectares of green forest, and uses fish data from a completely different Kalu River and river system, it naturally raises questions about how thorough the biodiversity assessment really was. This is the Western Ghats, an incredibly rich and fragile landscape, and its biodiversity cannot be captured through a few figures on paper. Before such a major hydropower project moves ahead, we need a proper, independent and scientifically sound assessment of what could be lost, including the forests, the Kalu River and the Adivasi villages that depend on this landscape.'
The public hearing scheduled for August 21 in Dhasai, Murbad, has been postponed, with a new date awaited. Local communities and environmental groups are demanding a comprehensive, scientifically sound assessment before the project proceeds further.
