Saving Sillahalla

Residents near River Sillahalla protest against the Sillahalla Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project due to safety and environmental concerns.

For the last few months, residents of Bellathycombai village near Manjoor in the Kundha taluk have been a worried lot. The Adivasi residents have been reporting strange explosions along River Sillahalla — the proposed project site of the Sillahalla Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project.

While officials of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) claim that the explosions should not be a cause for worry, arguing that they were conducting site-stability tests for getting approval for the project from the Geological Survey of India (GSI), residents argue that the government has little regard for their concern over safety. “As we are the ones who would be most affected by this project and at risk from any calamity that may arise out of a hydroelectric power project, we should be informed about the nature of work being undertaken at the site,” said a resident of Bellathycombai.

Residents of the village and 30 other areas which would be most affected by the project have grown increasingly frustrated with the government over its lack of transparency. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) scheduled a public consultation meeting in March this year, but cancelled it all of a sudden, without announcing a fresh date. Residents and activists feel the last-minute cancellation was a ploy to buy more time for the implementation of the project because environmentalists had planned a large-scale protest at the meeting. Despite assurances from Collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru that the project would be implemented only with the unanimous consent of local communities, there have been protests by residents and local activists.

The ruling DMK seems to have reconsidered its opposition to the project, as current Chief Minister M.K . Stalin had opposed the project when it was proposed by the Jayalalithaa government in 2013. Local communities along River Sillahalla have mobilised in large numbers to protest against its implementation. While the Balocola and Ithalar village panchayats passed resolutions against the project, residents staged several demonstrations.

Recently, hundreds of residents took part in ‘Sillahalla kaavadi’ and offered prayers at a temple at Manjoor against the project’s implementation. Arun Bellie, who is part of the movement spearheading the opposition to the project, says awareness is being created among local communities about its pitfalls. “At the moment, we are ensuring that as many people as possible have access to all the facts about the project,” he said.

Activists have also filed requests with the government under the RTI Act for details about the project and explosives being used at the site. “So far, there has been no response from the government,” says M. Sivalingam, of the Sillahalla Protection Committee and Farmers’ Association.

Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC), has written to the UNESCO regional head urging intervention. “The district is the most advanced area of the biosphere, being one of the top tourist destinations [over 3 million visit the Nilgiris in a year] in the country. Among other things, the tiny district contributes some 850 MW of hydro electricity to the State through 14 dams, mostly located within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve before it was constituted. It has long been agreed that the Nilgiris had saturated its hydro power capacity,” the letter reads.