The Visvesvaraya Jala Nigam has submitted a fresh proposal to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change seeking permission to use another 137 acres of forest land for the Bhadra Upper Project’s Tumakuru branch canal in Karnataka, according to a report by Prajavani. The proposal covers forest divisions in Bhadravati, Chikkamagaluru and Tumakuru districts and requires wildlife clearance because the canal will pass through the Bukkapattana Chinkara Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Bhadra Upper Project is intended to provide irrigation to drought-prone districts of Karnataka. The proposed canal will begin at Ajjampura and extend for 158 km up to Tumakuru district. The project authority has stated that the canal will benefit 375 villages once completed.
According to the proposal, 40 acres of forest land, or 29.9% of the land required for the canal, has already been used for construction. The fresh request seeks approval for the additional 137 acres needed to continue the work. The proposal places the forest-use decision within the approval process of the Union environment ministry.
The irrigation target associated with the canal is 84,900 hectares across three districts. This includes 22,130 hectares in Chikkamagaluru district, 43,555 hectares in Chitradurga district and 19,215 hectares in Tumakuru district. The project also aims to fill 131 lakes across the three districts, according to the details reported by Prajavani.
Because the canal alignment passes through the Bukkapattana Chinkara Wildlife Sanctuary, the proposal requires wildlife approval from the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife. The reported requirement means that permission for the additional forest land is not the only clearance linked to the proposal; the sanctuary crossing must also be considered through the wildlife approval process.
The Visvesvaraya Jala Nigam has said that implementation of the project would provide water to wild animals during the summer. That claim forms part of the corporation’s explanation for the proposal, alongside the project’s stated irrigation and lake-filling objectives.
The proposal therefore brings together two infrastructure objectives: expanding irrigation access in three districts and securing approvals for a canal that would use forest land and pass through a wildlife sanctuary. The next formal milestone is consideration of the forest-use request by the Union environment ministry and the wildlife clearance proposal by the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife.
