Tata Power’s board on Wednesday approved Rs 11,871 crore for its 1,800 MW pumped storage project at Shirwata in Pune district, Maharashtra. That moves the project from a plan into a funded capital commitment. For rock-excavation, haulage and concrete fleets in western Maharashtra, it puts a multi-year hydro job on the calendar. Most of it sits on a hilltop in the Sahyadri ghats, with an existing dam at the bottom.
The work at a glance
- Approval: Tata Power board, 11 November 2026, investment of Rs 11,871 crore (company-stated), disclosed to the exchanges the same evening.
- Capacity: 1,800 MW, configured as five 300 MW and two 150 MW units, with six hours of generation, according to the environmental clearance.
- Layout: the existing Shirawta reservoir is the lower reservoir. A new upper reservoir goes on the Jambhavli-Thoran hill range in Mawal taluka, with a surface powerhouse, a pressure shaft and a tail race tunnel.
- Land and muck: 197.797 ha, of which 160.783 ha is forest land, and 25.78 lakh cubic metres of excavated muck to be dumped.
What Tata Power approved
The Economic Times and InvestyWise both reported the board approval from Tata Power’s exchange filing, and Reuters carried the figure as 118.71 billion rupees. The exchange listing shows a Regulation 30 “Capacity Addition” disclosure at 17:48 IST on 11 November. A year ago the company had only said it would invest about Rs 11,000 crore at the site. Wednesday’s number is the board’s formal commitment. The project details come from the environment ministry’s clearance letter of 15 June 2026. That letter put the estimated project cost at Rs 7,285 crore. Neither document explains the gap, so we would not call it an overrun until Tata Power does.
Which machines this work needs
Because the lower dam already exists, the money concentrates at the top of the hill and in the waterway. Building an upper reservoir on a ridge means rock cut, embankment and lining. That brings crawler drills for blasting, 20 to 30 tonne excavators with rock buckets and hydraulic breakers, dozers, and vibratory compactors on the embankment. Ghat access roads limit how big those machines can be, whatever the budget. Expect mid-size crawlers that move in once and stay for the job, not 45 tonne mining-class machines.
The muck figure is the haulage story. Spread over four years, 25.78 lakh cubic metres averages roughly 54,000 cubic metres a month heading to the dump site. At about 10 cubic metres a load, that is in the order of 5,000 tipper trips a month on hill roads. The clearance also requires engineered stabilisation of the dump slopes, which means dozer and roller hours long after the digging is done. This is rough arithmetic on the clearance figure, not a contractor’s plan.
The surface powerhouse is a deep rock pit followed by heavy concrete. That brings batching plants, transit mixers, concrete pumps and crawler cranes for reinforcement and turbine embedment. The pressure shaft and tail race tunnel need drill jumbos and low-profile loaders. That is specialist kit the tunnelling contractor usually brings itself, so it is not open-hire work.
On headline cost, Shirwata works out to about Rs 6.6 crore per MW. The Upper Indravati pumped storage project cleared in Odisha this week comes to about Rs 7.8 crore per MW. Reusing an existing reservoir is the obvious reason the Maharashtra project is cheaper per MW. The ghat crest above Khopoli also takes some of the state’s heaviest monsoon rain, so plan surface earthwork for October to May and price machines on those months.
Pricing rock or haul fleets for hydro work in Maharashtra? See which machines suit power and renewable energy projects, compare excavator and crane options, and check finance before you commit to a multi-year site.
What follows next
- The civil EPC award. No contractor appears in the filing coverage, and the award will decide whether this fleet is owned or hired.
- Final forest clearance for the 160.783 ha of forest land. The clearance letter records the diversion application from June 2024, but we have not seen a final order.
- Progress at Tata Power’s 1,000 MW Bhivpuri pumped storage project nearby, which the company says is on schedule. The two sites will compete for the same operators and low-beds.
FAQ
What did Tata Power approve at Shirwata?
On 11 November 2026 its board approved an investment of Rs 11,871 crore in a 1,800 MW pumped storage project at Shirwata in Pune district, Maharashtra.
Why is the Shirwata pumped storage project mostly hill work?
The existing Shirawta dam serves as the lower reservoir. New construction is the upper reservoir on the Jambhavli-Thoran hill range, a surface powerhouse, a pressure shaft and a tail race tunnel.
Who will build it?
No civil contractor was named in the coverage of the board approval. Watch for an EPC award disclosure.
Related on DesiMachines: Upper Indravati Pumped Storage Project: Odisha Clears MEIL’s Rs 3,373 Crore EPC
Source: InvestyWise
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