In Shahbad: drown a forest; grow a dam

The first time Gajanand Sahariya heard that he was a landlord was when some men appeared at his kuccha home asking him to sell his land. “They told me that 10 bighas [roughly six acres] were in my name. I went to see the land [roughly two kilometres away]. It was completely overgrown. It had never been cultivated, by us or anybody,” says this resident of Mundeyar, an Adivasi hamlet in Kaloni village.

The 35-year-old Sahariya Adivasi was incredulous at his newly-discovered status and happy for the money that would follow. He barely manages four to five days in a month of daily wage labour at around Rs. 200 a day; he also migrates out for work. Gajanand’s joint family of 15 members mostly rely on bringing non-timber forest produce (NTFP) from the Shahbad forest. “We bring mahua, tendu, fuelwood, achar, amla,” he reeled off. “With this we keep going.” This earns them a few thousand rupees a month.

The forest they rely on is the Shahbad Taleti forest in eastern Rajasthan, spread across 179 square kilometres. Its dense jungle is thick with rare plants, trees and wildlife. As recently as 2022, the forest department pointed to its ecological significance and named it a conservation reserve. Karaya [Sterculia urens] is only found in a few forests like Shahbad, and there are hundreds of medicinal plants here as well.

This forest is home to Schedule I animals and birds -- they are protected from hunting under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Their list includes: the Bengal and golden jackal, Indian wolf, leopard (Panthera pardus), Indian grey mongoose, striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), badgers, civet, sloth bear, red-headed vulture, Indian peafowl and many more.

It’s also under an hour from Kuno National Park, and falls within the proposed corridor to link Kuno to the cheetah’s second home in Gandhi Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. With cheetahs dying at a rapid pace, officialdom hopes this will help.

It’s been raining the entire week in June. The forest floor is awash with rivulets leading into big streams. It’s all flowing towards the Kundah Kho waterfall, which is pouring a river of muddy water 100 feet down into a gorge. The Kuno river snakes below. Despite the rain, one can see villagers here foraging for NTFP.

Sahariya Adivasis are ranked as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) – the only such group in Rajasthan. Like Gajanand, they are highly dependent on the forest for income from resin, firewood, fruits, roots and herbs. Kaloni village is largely – 70 per cent – Adivasi and Dalit people in almost equal numbers (Census 2011).

But this pristine forest used by thousands of people, has been marked for a pumped storage hydro project (PSP) of 1,800 MW by the Greenko Group. It will drown 408 hectares of land in the Shahbad forest, and 216 ha of land outside the forest is needed for roads, housing, transmissions and project offices. The habitats of many wildlife species will go, and a proposed cheetah corridor – linking Kuno National Park to Gandhi Sagar sanctuary – will end pretty much near its starting point.

The forests of India and villages around them, are under siege from ‘development’ projects that are permanently ending forest-based livelihoods. A lifeline for marginal and landless people in rural India -- an estimated 400 million people depend on non-timber forest produce (NTFP) to supplement their sporadic daily wage earnings.

Now they are being tricked out of their land as well. Middlemen from distant Shahbad town and Baran, are ‘discovering’ Adivasi landowners in three villages – Kaloni, Baint and Mungawali, from whom they want to buy cheap and sell high when the project is cleared.

With brokers from Shahbad town panting at his heels, Adivasi Gajanand and his brothers decided to sell. At Rs.4 lakh a bigha – the total of Rs. 40 lakhs was difficult to let pass. They never met the final buyer, only signed some papers they couldn’t read, and they are not sure if they have received the full amount. Sahariya literacy rate is around 23 per cent, well below even the 38 per cent average for all tribals in the state.

“The dalals [middlemen] and company people are targeting Adivasi and Dalits as they are easy to hoodwink, and will find it hard to resist the cash,” says Jitu Pandit, a 29-year-old upper caste farmer in the village. “In my estimate, 2,000 bighas have already been bought up.” No brokers, nor men acting as brokers, were willing to speak to PARI, on or off the record.

Dalit farmer in Kaloni, Ramesh Chand Jatav and his two brothers own 17 bighas of land (roughly 10 acres). They too sold at Rs. 4 lakh a bigha. Showing PARI his passbook, he points to a deposit of Rs. 12 lakhs on May 7, 2024, which he says is his share. Like Gajanand, he has no idea who he sold it to, he has no papers on him. “I was only made to sign.”

The joint family practiced rainfed agriculture but it is not enough to feed the four families. Men do wage labour, and women in the family fetch fuelwood, fruits like mahua and amla. “An income through the year,” Ramesh Chand tells PARI.

The land that he “sold” to a broker, “was allotted to my father 50 years ago,” says the 55-year-old Ramesh Chand. The Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act 1973 distributed land to landless Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) families.

But the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 bars them from selling outside the community.

“It cannot happen. I will get it checked,” says Rohitashv Singh Tomar, District Collector Baran when PARI asked him. “It is not possible that any land sale by SC or ST has been done officially. It has to be registered through the Collector’s office, and nothing has come to me. I will get it cancelled. It is against the law,” the 40-year-old government official added firmly.

That’s good news for those who own land.

But the project will also reduce the size of the forest, critical for many landless villagers who depend on it, especially women. Shabu bai, 50 and Ranishree, 42, are Sahariya Adivasis who have lost their husbands to ill health. “We have no land and no cattle. If the forest goes, we will have to migrate,” they say, looking worried.

It's 7:30 a.m., and Nemi Chand’s five cows are ambling alongside him on the dirt road leading out of Kaloni. They are off to graze in the buffer zone.

All families with cattle are especially worried about the takeover of the forest by the pumped storage project. “Our animals' grazing ground is going,” says Nemi Chand. “If this jungle goes, animals will die. There will be no place left for them to graze.”

The 60-year-old Dalit herder owns seven bighas of land (roughly three acres) on which he cultivates maize, soyabean and fodder. He earns around Rs. 15,000 a year from selling a part of the harvest, but medicines for his animals and other expenses leave him with nothing. His four sons are daily wage workers, as is Nemi Chand, who occasionally works at a nearby stone crushing unit for Rs. 300 a day.

While he has not seriously considered selling his land, he says his choices are limited. “Once the trees are cut, and the [farm] land is gone, then we have no recourse, nothing. We will have to migrate, to leave the village. Coming generations will have no sahara [support]. No milk, dung, manure… It will all be over,” he adds.

In another part of the forest, carrying an umbrella and water for a long day out are Lala Ram Jatav and his wife Rekha Jatav. “If our jungle is cut, we will lose a lot…the fruits and flowers will go. Our daily earnings [from NTFP and firewood] will go. What [employment] can you get in our village?” asks Rekha who is an anganwadi worker.

The Dalit couple own 15 bighas (roughly 6-7 acres) on which they cultivate soybeans, maize and mustard, earning Rs. 4-5 lakh in a year. But with two children in college, this is just not enough, so they are here in the forest.

None of the people PARI met said that they had been consulted for the upcoming project which will end their dependence on the forest. That means at least two central laws -- that were written to ensure that people who live near our forests have a fair say in any conversion of forest land -- were flouted.

Under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, only if the village gram sabha “recommends’ it in writing, can a project go through. Local people say they were duped into signing a blank sheet of paper.

Their prior consent is also mandatory under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARRA). That too was ignored. (So far only the forest department has been ‘compensated’ for the loss of this forest with 408 ha in Jaisalmer).

But everyone remembers a lunch back in 2022, organised in the village of Kaloni by “company” people – referring to Greenko. The meal of pooris and a vegetable curry made the speeches a little palatable – the residents were asked to sell their land to the company in view of the upcoming project. In turn, says Jitu Pandit, each seller was promised jobs in the project.

This was clearly ahead of the Central government’s ‘okay’ for land in Shahbad forest to be diverted for non-forest use. That came two years later. Environmental clearance (EIC) was also given, in August 2024. It has since been deferred and is currently (Sept 2025) being challenged in the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur.

However, work has begun on digging trenches and laying out markers in the forest. Despite “company’s promises at the lunch,” Jitu Pandit says not a single person from the village has been employed. “They are bringing labour from outside,” he told PARI.

A group of activists have filed an interim application in the suo moto petition being considered by the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur seeking “Protection of 1.19 lakh trees proposed to be felled for the establishment of the Pumped Storage Project in Shahbad Block, Baran District.”

Jitendra Sharma is among those who filed this petition. He asks how a project can be allowed in a Protected Area as per the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, without approvals. “Yet, tree felling has already started,” says a visibly upset Sharma who estimates that 25 lakh trees will be cut, not the 1.19 lakh the government has said. (Even forest officials agree that the state’s figure is a gross underestimate.) Sharma is a teacher and convener of the INTACH Baran chapter.

“How can the state allow so much forest in Shahbad to be cut down for a private power project of this scale?” he asks. Sharma is a central figure in the Shahbad Sanrakshan Sangharsh Samiti. “This is absolutely a Tughlaqi decree [authoritarian decision].”

Last month (Sept 10, 2025), the Rajasthan forest department suspended the District Forest Officer of Baran division, Anil Yadav, for allowing illegal encroachment and felling of trees. Speaking to PARI before he was suspended, he had admitted that “plantations can never be a replacement for a forest.”

There is little to no doubt that the project will get the final go ahead. After all, across the country, large ‘development’ projects are being green lit. Overall, 411 large dams are to be constructed and they are all big ticket items. Look at the numbers: from Rs. 1,50,000 crores on the Siang in Arunachal, to Rs. 72,000 crores for the Great Nicobar project.

In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, giant energy firm, Adani partners Greenko in several projects. A press release on March 14, 2022 available on their website says: “Greenko to supply 6 GWhr of electricity to Adani group’s proposed industrial complex. The power will come from Greenko’s ‘pumped hydro storage’ capacity that is coming up in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.” Incidentally, this partnership has more than 20 per cent of the proposed pumped storage projects till 2035.

However, the very technology and efficacy of pumped storage has come in for sharp criticism. They are meant to store surplus electricity and generate when needed. So, store when demand dips, and generate when needed.

“But even existing hydropower at peak hours is not being optimised or monitored,” says scientist Himanshu Thakkar. He is the Coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).

Thakkar goes on to add that there is no scientific basis for PSPs being projected as ‘environmentally friendly’. On the contrary, a major infrastructure intervention like PSP will have significant social and environmental impacts, he adds.

At least 62 more PSPs are proposed, and to be ready by 2035-36. Calls to Greenko offices in Delhi and Hyderabad went unanswered, one number went to a mailbox that was too full to take further messages, and mails have not been answered.

But there is a twist to this story. And one which may just save Shahbad.

Kuno National Park – home to cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) from Africa – is just 40 km as the crow flies from here. In the last year, cheetahs have been moving out of Kuno in search of prey, so the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has come up with an interstate cheetah conservation complex – an area covering approximately 17,000 sq kms in what is being called the Kuno-Gandhi Sagar (KGS) landscape.

Travelling on this route, a cheetah leaving Kuno will reach Shahbad in a few hours – and they have already been sighted there. A cheetah can even swim in the Kuno river, and reach even faster!

A PSP which takes down 408 acres of this forest corridor will now have to be weighed against the cheetah’s needs – a project that the Prime Minister himself saw fit to inaugurate in September 2022.

For conservationists, that the cheetahs may actually save Shahbad is perhaps a pleasing possibility.

But first the cheetahs will have to save themselves.

The author would like to thank Brajesh Vijayvargi, senior reporter from Kota, Isha Shah and Suraj Pratap Sharma, for their generous help with the story.