Live issue · October 2026
A cloud forest on the crest of the Sahyadri, the birthplace of the Bhima river, the home of Maharashtra's state animal. And about 15 km down the same escarpment, 32,490 trees have been cleared for felling.
In brief · 30 seconds
At Saidongar in Karjat taluka (Raigad), about 15 km south-west of Bhimashankar sanctuary, the Forest Department has permitted the felling of 32,490 trees on 233 ha of forest land for a 3,000 MW pumped-storage power project. About 1,800–2,700 had been cut before felling was paused on 26–27 Oct.
The project's own environmental report records leopards, sloth bears, pangolins and sambar here. This forest is the catchment of the Pej, a tributary of the Ulhas, and it holds landslide-prone Sahyadri slopes together. Adivasi hamlets live in and around it.
Government and company: the site is outside the sanctuary, all clearances are in place, the project is green, and 90,000 trees will be planted. Citizens: Sahyadri forest doesn't stop at a line — publish the studies and hear the people first. Some groups say they are approaching the National Green Tribunal.
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High on the crest of the Western Ghats, where the Deccan plateau suddenly falls away to the Konkan coast, there is a forest that makes its own weather.
For four months of monsoon, clouds sit inside the trees. Moss and orchids cover every branch. When the clouds lift, the Bhima river trickles out of these hills and begins a ~860-km journey east to the Krishna.
To protect this place, and the giant squirrel that lives in its canopy, the Government of Maharashtra notified the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary in 1985 (state notification of 16 September 1985). It spreads across Ambegaon and Khed talukas of Pune district, reaching into Thane and Raigad.
At its heart stands the Bhimashankar temple, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, so this forest was sacred to millions long before it was a "sanctuary" on a map.
Chapter 02
Shekru · Maharashtra's state animal
The Indian giant squirrel (Ratufa indica; the local form is often called elphinstonei) is a squirrel the size of a cat, nearly a metre from nose to the tip of its tail, rust and black and cream. It is Maharashtra's state animal, and this sanctuary was created for it.
A Shekru almost never touches the ground. It builds several leafy nests high in the canopy and leaps up to six metres between crowns. Its whole world is a continuous roof of trees.
Chapter 03
From a botanical survey published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa (2017), and sanctuary records.
Every flowering plant recorded at Bhimashankar is one dot here. Tap the buttons to see how many grow only in India, and how many are threatened.
Source: Journal of Threatened Taxa (2017). Dot layout is illustrative.
Chapter 04
keep scrolling →
Giant squirrel. State animal. Lives its life in the canopy.
Found only in the Western Ghats. A fruit-eater that plants the forest as it flies.
The "whistling schoolboy" — its human-like whistle carries along the forest streams.
Damp, mossy undergrowth where green pit vipers wait, perfectly still, for hours.
A shy bird with a crimson chest. It lives only in dense, unbroken forest, a sign of a healthy one.
The sanctuary's top predator, moving quietly at night through forest and along village edges.
Photographed inside Bhimashankar sanctuary. Troops live in the trees, eating leaves, fruit and flowers.
The male's white tail ribbons through the air. It nests in the ghat forests in the monsoon.
Maharashtra's state butterfly, gliding like blue velvet along forest paths after the rains.
One of the largest moths on Earth. Its wingtips look like a cobra's head.
Glides from tree to tree on webbed feet. A Western Ghats speciality.
Silhouetted against the sun, photographed inside the sanctuary.
One of the 1,142 flowering plants recorded here; 217 of them are found only in India.
A world hidden in every leaf — one footpath, countless lives.
A woody giant in the sanctuary was estimated in 1984 to be 800–1,000 years old. Older than many Sahyadri forts as we know them.
On monsoon nights, fungi on rotting wood glow green. Before the rains, millions of fireflies blink in sync.
Mammals that need unbroken forest to move between feeding grounds and water.
Chapter 05
Before the first rain, the forest floor lights up. Thousands of visitors come just for this.
Heavy rain soaks the hills. Streams feed the Bhima to the east and the Konkan rivers to the west.
Mornings above a sea of mist; the valleys fill with cloud and the ridges float.
Leaves fall, fruits ripen, and every patch of water becomes a lifeline for wildlife.
Photographs
Cliffs, streams, flowers and birds: the mountain range Bhimashankar belongs to. Tap a photo to see it large.
Films
Drone films and shorts, with thanks to the creators who filmed this forest. Videos play from YouTube.
Chapter 06
The forest is not empty. Mahadeo Koli and Katkari Adivasi families have lived in and around it for generations.
Their devrai, or sacred groves, are patches no one cuts because they belong to the deity. Fourteen of them survive inside the sanctuary, some holding the oldest trees in the landscape.
Women's self-help groups collect and sell Bhimashankar honey; villages like Yelavali run community eco-tourism for trekkers. The Katkari are recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. Decisions about this forest are decisions about their lives.
Chapter 07 · Understand the issue
Slogans aside, in five steps: where, what, how much, when, and your questions.
Bhimashankar sanctuary sits on the Sahyadri crest (Pune district). About 15 km to its south-west, the same escarpment drops into Karjat taluka of Raigad. The project site is on these slopes and on the Dhak plateau above them, around the villages of Pali, Potal, Saidongar, Ambot, Dhak and Bhaliwadi, about 10 km east of Karjat town.
The Pej, a small seasonal river that rises on this plateau, flows north-west and joins the Ulhas near Bhivpuri. The Ulhas flows on past Badlapur, Ulhasnagar and Kalyan, a drinking-water source for millions.
Satellite image: Esri World Imagery. Rivers and sanctuary boundary: OpenStreetMap. Project location from the reservoir coordinates in official documents.
The project is a giant "water battery". In the day, when solar power is plentiful, water is pumped from a lower dam up to a lake on the hilltop. In the evening, when demand peaks, the same water is let down through turbines to make power.
Official project documents place the upper reservoir on the Dhak plateau and the lower reservoir behind a ~59 m dam across the Pej. The plateau goes under water, and the river is dammed.
Storage like this matters for clean energy. The question is not the technology, it's the location. Felling Western Ghats reserved forest for green energy is a contradiction worth questioning.
The big square is the 233 hectares of forest land the project needs. Pick something to see how many fit inside:
The project's environmental-clearance filings give a total project area of 377 hectares: 233 ha of forest land (mostly reserved forest) and 144 ha of other land.
Football pitch ≈ 0.71 ha, Shivaji Park ≈ 11.3 ha.
Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary notified to protect the Shekru.
Torrent PSH 3, a Torrent Power subsidiary, signs an MoU with Maharashtra's Water Resources Department for Saidongar-1.
Public hearing at Gaurkamath, Karjat (442 attended). Activists object that it was held outside the affected villages and announced late.
Stage-I forest clearance (31 Dec) and central environmental clearance (12 Jan); civil works contract to L&T.
Equipment contracts announced for "India's largest pumped-storage plant".
Forest Department permits the felling of 32,490 trees; felling begins around 20 Oct.
MLA Rohit Pawar raises the felling of 32,000+ trees on 233 ha. Conservator of Forests, Pune: no illegal felling inside the sanctuary.
CM Fadnavis: the opposition is spreading a "fake narrative"; 90,000 trees will be planted. Torrent: the site is about 16 km from the sanctuary.
Aaditya Thackeray visits Saidongar; the Forest Department temporarily pauses felling. Voices against it from within the ruling alliance too. The Ulhas River Conservation Action Committee says it is approaching the NGT.
MNS chief Raj Thackeray visits Karjat.
Keep the pause in place until the studies are public. Reports say the PM may lay the foundation stone, but this has not been officially announced.
No. Official records put it about 15.5 km from the sanctuary and outside its eco-sensitive zone. But it is in the Western Ghats, on the same escarpment, and the project's own environmental report records leopards, sloth bears, pangolins and four-horned antelope here. Our concern is the Sahyadri forest itself, not just the sanctuary line.
Yes, it helps store solar and wind power, though about a quarter of the energy is lost in each cycle. Such plants can also use existing reservoirs, or "closed-loop" designs that don't dam a river. This project was in fact first proposed as closed-loop, and later redesigned to dam the Pej.
A sapling is not a forest. A hundred-year-old tree with its moss, orchids, fungi, nests and soil life takes decades, sometimes centuries, to come back. For this project, the compensatory land is about 150 km away in Patan taluka, Satara district, and it is already forested.
Yes. The Forest Department confirms permission to fell 32,490 trees (14 Oct 2026). The company's own draft environmental report estimated about 48,000. Activists claim the real number is higher, but that is unverified. That gap is why we ask: publish the full tree-enumeration list.
In heavy rain, Sahyadri slopes are held together by tree roots. Disasters like Malin (2014) and Irshalwadi (2023) happened in this same range. Tunnel blasting and bare slopes can raise that risk, hence the call for an independent study.
No. A second unit, Saidongar-2 (Maval), would share the same lower reservoir, and Tata Power's 1,800 MW Shirawta project is about 6 km away. That's why we ask for a cumulative-impact study.
The government and Torrent say the project has every required clearance; that much of the plateau is scrub and grass with sparse trees (per the environmental report); that downstream drinking and irrigation water won't be affected (per a state hydrology certificate); and that it will avoid millions of tonnes of CO₂ a year compared with coal. Activists say the forest holds trees 200–300 years old. Only an independent survey can settle it.
1) Sign the petition below. 2) Email the ready-made letter. 3) Share this link in your WhatsApp groups. 4) Ask your MLA and MP about it. 5) Visit Bhimashankar, respectfully.
This is what a hillside looks like after its evergreen forest is felled.
Representative photo: Arunachal Pradesh. Saurabhsawantphoto, CC BY-SA 4.0Chapter 08 · The cut
This is a model of a forest plateau like the one at Saidongar, in Karjat taluka of Raigad district, about 15 km south-west of Bhimashankar sanctuary. Keep scrolling.
Torrent Power is building a pumped-storage hydroelectric project here, estimated at ₹13,505 crore. Two reservoirs, tunnels through the hill, and water pumped up and let down to store power.
Permission has been granted to fell 32,490 trees on 233 hectares (about 575 acres) of forest land. That's roughly 326 football pitches.
The site lies in the valley of the Pej river, a tributary of the Ulhas, which supplies drinking water to towns downstream. Activists warn of water scarcity; the project cites a state hydrology certificate saying downstream users won't be affected.
Tunnel blasting in these hills worries locals who remember Malin (2014) and Irshalwadi (2023), villages buried by landslides in the Sahyadri.
Compensatory plantation has been promised. But a planted sapling is not a grown forest, with the soil, undergrowth, nests and canopy that took decades or centuries to form.
Chapter 09
Facts matter more than slogans. Here's what has been reported, 24–28 October 2026.
Our view: a forest doesn't stop at a boundary line. The sanctuary, the Saidongar plateau and its wildlife, rivers and hillsides are one Sahyadri landscape. Before a single more tree falls, the full studies should be public, the combined impact of all projects here should be assessed, and the people living there should be heard.
The petition