The Yettinahole Project: Inefficient and a costly solution
The Yettinahole project proposes to transfer water from two tributaries of the Nethravati river districts in south Karnataka  in the west and transfer this water to the other end of the state, in the east.

Impact on Forest Land and Wildlife:

The exact extent of revenue, private, agriculture and forest land required for the scheme is not known from the PR. The report (Volume II, Estimates) mentions a head ‘clearing of thick forest by burning’ under costs for laying rising mains from dams to pumping stations. According to these estimates, 107.27 hectares of thick forests will have to be cut or burnt for the rising mains alone.

The forest land involved in submergence of dams, approach roads, workers colonies, muck dumping sites, electrical substations, mining of materials for the project, destruction due to blasting, etc. will be additional. The project report does not provide any of these details.Most of the forests in the vicinity of Yettinahole, Kadumane hole, Kerihole and Hongadhalla are not only reserved forests, but important wildlife corridors. When IISC studied this region it recorded 119 trees species, 63 shrubs and climbers, 57 herbs and 54 pteridophytes[3], 44 species of butterflies, 4 dragon and damsel flies, 23 species of amphibians including the threatened Gundia Indian Frog, 32 reptiles, 91 birds and 22 mammals including Tiger, Lion Tailed Macaque, Elephant, Slender Loris and Gaur.

Environmental Flows As per the working tables, all inflow from the headwaters will be diverted for the most of June, parts of July and August and all of September, October and November. The streams will be completely dry for most days during this period. (Project Report Vol. I, Page A 21) There has been no provision made for environmental flows. This will be extremely damaging for the downstream ecology, wildlife and forests. This issues needs urgent attention and studies.

Diverting entire rivers and not just floodwaters: The scheme purports that it is diverting only the flood waters of these rivers. However, the yield of all the rivers at 50% dependability between June-November is 28.94 TMC, out of which 24.01 TMC will be diverted.This leaves just 4.93 TMC for the downstream. This is maximum diversion of the rivers and not just ‘flood waters’ or overflow.

Also, even when rainfall is low, the scheme will divert all available water till it gets its share of 24.01 TMC, which will then dry the rivers completely in the downstream.

These are monsoon-fed rivers. Only source of water for these rivers is the monsoon, which also replenishes groundwater, which constitutes the base flow in non-monsoon months. This diversion in monsoon months will have a huge impact on water availability in non-monsoon months also in these rivers and which in turn will have impact on the biodiversity and livelihoods.

Escaping Environmental Clearance by false claims

This scheme will:

1.Destroy hundreds of hectares of pristine biodiversity rich and unexplored forests, wildlife habitats, habitats of critically endangered species, reserved and protected forests in the Western Ghats
2.Affect downstream flows and riverine ecology of the Gundia, Kumaradhara & Netravathi Rivers
It will submerge nearly a 1200 hectares of land, 50% forest land and 2 villages for reservoir to be constructed at Devaranyadurga
3.Main gravity canal which will be 250 kms long and 16 mts wide (as stated in EAC meeting by proponent) will require a minimum of 400 hectares of land
It involves Interbasin water transfer, which is not prudent or viable as per the Western Ghats Expert Ecology Panel Report
Clearly, the scheme requires detailed scrutiny for its impacts by undergoing participatory environment and social impact assessment and undergoing a thorough Environmental Appraisal.

The project neither proposes any hydro-electric power generation component nor comprises of any irrigation component and thus has no command area.

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