Ooty residents intensify opposition to Silahalla project

Residents from over 20 villages thronged the district collectorate in Udhagamandalam on Monday (March 24, 2025), expressing apprehensions over the Silahalla Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric Project and calling for its immediate cancellation.

Residents from over 20 villages thronged the district collectorate in Udhagamandalam on Monday (March 24, 2025), expressing apprehensions over the Silahalla Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric Project and calling for its immediate cancellation.

In their petition, the residents said the project would submerge hundreds of acres of prime forest areas and private patta and agricultural lands. Besides, it would affect nearby wildlife sanctuaries, including the Mukurthi National Park, they alleged. The residents feared that people living around the proposed project site would lose their livelihoods, and they also expressed concerns about the safety and integrity of the slopes.

According to them, such a large project in an area already designated as being prone to landslips, could lead to environmental disasters and catastrophic events in the future. The construction of the dam and the collection of water in it would further exacerbate pollution of the Silahalla stream, which is already being polluted by agricultural run-off and sewage, they alleged.

In another petition, the Silahalla Environmental and Social Association (SESA) urged the Collector to halt “illegal blasting and quarrying in the proposed Silahalla Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project” site near Kundha.

The SESA claimed residents have been experiencing disruptions due to detonation of explosives in the area for the last two months. “While there is a strict ban on carrying out blasting and quarrying activities in the Nilgiris, this kind of transgression is substantially negatively impacting the fragile ecology of the Nilgiris,” it said. The reverberations from the explosives are reportedly heard at Bellathicombai village and Manjoor, in violation of the 2008 Madras High Court order banning illegal quarrying and mining in the Nilgiris.