Dr. Ranjit Daniels Ph. D.                                               Care Earth

Shrinivas, 5, 21st Street

                                                                                                            Thilaiganga Nagar

                                                                                                            Chennai 600 061

                                                                                                            Email: [email protected]

 

Evaluation of the Environment Impact Assessment conducted by Tata Energy Research Institute, Bangalore for the Dandeli Mini-Hydel Project of M/s Murdeshwar Power Corporation Ltd. across River Kali near Dandeli in Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka

(Clarifications in parenthesis are by ESG)

 

I am qualified only to comment on the ecological aspects having worked in the Dandeli area during the late 1980's. 

 

From a perusal of the TERI EIA it is obvious that the person who has done the flora/fauna is not a qualified biologist.  Statements, such as, the forests here record "very less species per unit area" (Sec IV - 19) is absurd.  Judging by the species (listed in the TERI EIA study), the forest is clearly a mosaic of deciduous and evergreen forests.  Such forests are the richest in biodiversity in Uttara Kannada.  Forest working plans published in 1993 (and used as basis of the TERI EIA study) might have been prepared years ago and hence with outdated information on plants and animals.  To base species list on this is unwise. 

 

Names of species are erroneous, sometimes outdated and even non-existent in reality.  Plant names are full of spelling and classification errors.  List of fishes of River Kali is dubious. Sole (Cynoglossus lingua Ham.) is a marine estuarine species and it can hardly exist in the proposed site.  There are no lung fishes in India!  (as claimed to exist in Sec IV - 34 of TERI EIA).

 

Crocodiles in Kali River?  Where exactly?  This is news! Source has not been provided for Bird List Karwar-Haliyal area even when there are specific lists for Dandeli prepared by a student of Univ. of Karnataka in Dharwar, (perhaps) in 1989.  There are not more than 150 species of birds in the area (in contrast to the TERI EIA claims that 233 bird species are found in the Dandeli Dam Study Area) and the (bird) list (in the TERI report) is copied without acknowledgement..  Gallus gallus: Red Jungle Fowl, is not known from the State of Karnataka (as claimed to exist in Dandeli vide Table 4.14; Sec. IV - 35 of the TERI EIA).  New records of species (as claimed to have been the result of the TERI EIA study), indicated with *, are well known in the district even 100 years ago!  Further, there cannot be many of these species in the study area.  Such compilations don't help.

 

Too few butterflies.  Many common butterfly species missed out.

 

There are no 'herds' of elephants, in Dandeli (as claimed in the TERI EIA).  10-12 years ago there was one herd with less than 20 individuals around Haliyal.  And, there are no foxes!  Snake list consists of only the most common species (while the area has) many more.  For eg. Even the more commonly occurring Pit Vipers are not listed?

 

Amphibian data is spurious.  Ansonia ornata, Bufo microtympanum are not known from the district. (as claimed to exist in Dandeli in Table 4.17, Sec IV - 43 of the TERI EIA)

 

In general, the ecological data presented is secondary and spurious.  And thus, recommendations based on these can't be taken seriously.

 

 

 

R. J. Ranjit Daniels

29 November 2000