Sillahalla Pumped Hydro-Electric Storage Project will affect over 10,000 people directly, negatively impact over 25 villages, will submergence more than 315 hectares of forest, private, and government lands and a major threat to wildlife and Environment. Indigenous people and farmers will lose their land and be displaced of all forms of their livelihood.

The Kundah watershed region in the Nilgiris is the birthplace of the Bhavani – Cauvery River. It also supports important last remaining shola-grassland mosaic vegetation, which is one of the most endan- gered vegetation types in India. This region has crucial amounts of green cover in terms of forested tracts (plantations) which have to saynow been naturalised and serve as important habitat and corri- dors for endangered populations of wildlife; such as—Nilgiri tahr, Nilgiri marten, Nilgiri langur, Nilgiri laughing thrush, Nilgiri pipit, horse-shoe pit-viper, Nilgiri salea, rusty spotted cat, leopard cat, mouse deer, barking deer, dholes, leopards, tigers and hundreds of other species. Two of the particularly vulnerable adivasi groups Toda’s in the Nilgiri plateau and the Irulas in the Pillur valley are inhabitants of the forest grassland mosaics in the upstream-downstream catchments. The Badagas, the largest indigenous community in the Nilgiris, are an integral part of this landscape.