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400 kV Transmission Line Corridor passing through Protected Area
Introduction
The peak demand met by Goa during the year 2014-15 was 489 MW, the peak demand of 815 MW was expected by the end of 12th Plan (2016-17) and 1192 MW by the end of 13th plan (2021-22).
At present demand of Goa is mainly catered through Mapusa 3x315 MVA, 400/220 kV substation, which gets its feed from the Kolhapur 400 kV substation through a 400 kV D/c line.
The Goa system is also connected with Maharashtra and Karnataka through 220 kV lines
The project is a part of “Additional 400 kV feed to Goa and Additional system for Power Evacuation from Generation Projects Pooled at Rajgarh (Tamnar) Pool”.
Transmission Line Route in Goa State Protected Areas
The Transmission line route passes through the Bhagwan Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary (BMWS)-intercepts in two sections. At first it enters the BMWS near Surla Village and then secondly it enters ahead of Tambdi Surla Temple and enters in Karnataka, covering total 11.54 ha area.
A total of 25 transmission towers are to be erected for the entire stretch within BMWS.
The entire stretch of transmission line route is a green field area. The core and buffer areas are demarcated as following.
Core Area: The transmission line route, the tower locations (with activity areas of 10m radius) and the Right of Way (23m on each side from median of the line route) is considered as Core area for biodiversity assessments.
Buffer Area: Buffer areas are considered 500 m radius areas from the transmission tower locations and the transmission route.
Overall diversity is represented by 28 families 42 genera and 45 species. A total of 38 trees and liana species were recorded from study area. Total of seven annual species were recorded from lateritic plateaus of buffer zones.
In study area six (06) species were found to be threatened of which four (04) arboreal species occur in forests and two (02) herbaceous species were observed growing on lateritic outcrops.
A total of 12 endemic plants were reported of which four (04) are herbaceous; three (03) are climbers and five (05) are tree species.
Construction Phase Mitigation Measures
The proposed transmission line project is estimated to acquire a total of 11.54 ha area of the Sanctuary which would result in the loss of forest habitat, change in species composition and change in abundance of faunal groups of the overall project area.
Section 1 of Transmission line falls in the lateritic plateaus habitat with west coast semi evergreen forest areas in fringes. The transmission tower locations are in the forest habitat. This section requires 2.53 ha of forest land to be diverted.
Section 2 of the transmission line falls in the west coast semi evergreen forest, west coast tropical evergreen and the moist deciduous forest area. The tower locations are in the dense to very dense forest area. This section required diversion of 9.01 ha of forest land area.