About

Who makes this

Batteries in the Ghats is an independent data story. It tracks every pumped storage project planned in Maharashtra's Sahyadri: the trees and forest each one needs, the clearances it got, and what people living there say. It is researched, written and built by one person, Sanket Tambare, and takes no money from developers, governments or political parties.

Where the facts come from

I start from official documents: Terms of Reference, Environmental Clearance letters, minutes of the Expert Appraisal Committee and the Forest Advisory Committee, EIA reports, forest orders, gazette notifications and Central Electricity Authority records. Most are on the Parivesh portal. When a document is not public, we use news reports and say so.

Every number on the site has a row in citations.json with the document, the PDF page and the exact sentence it comes from. Click the ⓘ beside a number to see it. When two sources disagree, I show both side by side and do not pick one.

Every claim carries an evidence label: documented, reported, alleged (always with who alleges it) or official claim. The methodology page explains each one.

Daily news updates

Each morning an automated process searches the outlets listed below and adds new reports to News and the Timeline. It only adds items from outlets marked "auto" in the table, and it writes summaries in its own words. Items it adds show a not yet reviewed badge until an editor checks them. An editor can reject an item, and a rejected item is removed from the site. The full history of every change is public in the project's git repository.

Corrections

If something on this site is wrong, tell me. Write to daredavil239804@gmail.com with the page, the claim and, if you can, a document that shows the correct fact.

• I reply within 7 days.
• If I got a fact wrong, I fix it and add a dated note on the page saying what changed.
• I do not quietly delete or rewrite claims. Every change is in the public git history.
• If a number is in dispute and both sides have a document, I show both.

Right of reply

Before launch I write to every developer and public body named in a key claim, with the claim and its source, and give them 14 days to respond. Replies that arrive are published in full, next to the claim they answer, with the date I received them. A developer or official named on the site can write to daredavil239804@gmail.com at any time, and I will add their response.

Reuse

Code is MIT-licensed. Data and text are CC BY 4.0: credit "Batteries in the Ghats". Quotes and figures from other sources belong to those sources. All data files are free to download below.

Who built it

The site is designed, researched and built by Sanket Tambare. See Created by.