On December 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Madhya Pradesh’s Khajuraho to lay the foundation stone for various development projects. Among them was the ambitious Ken-Betwa river linking project that plans to transfer excess water from the Ken river basin to the Betwa river basin in the Bundelkhand region that covers parts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
As the Prime Minister flagged off work on the project, the Congress and a section of environmentalists raised concerns regarding its potential impact on environment, local ecology and wildlife as a large part of the project falls inside the Panna National Park and Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh.
According to the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Ken-Betwa link project (KBLP) is the first of 30 such link projects under a National Perspective Plan (NPP) for water resources development and interlinking of rivers with ‘surplus water’ to those with ‘deficit water’, formulated in 1980 by the Ministry (then Union Ministry of Irrigation) and the Central Water Commission.
The NPP is divided into two components — Himalayan Rivers Development that proposes 14 links and Peninsular Rivers Development that plans 16 links, as identified by the National Water Development Agency (NWDA).
An idea first envisaged in 1995 after a feasibility study by the NWDA, the KBLP, part of the Peninsular Rivers Development, has moved at a slow pace. The first major breakthrough was, however, achieved on August 25, 2005 as the Central Government and the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the preparation of a Detailed Project Report (DPR).
Entrusted to the NWDA, the report was completed in December 2008 and in February 2009, it was decided that the DPR will be prepared in two phases. In phase I, Daudhan Dam and its appurtenant works, two tunnels, two power houses and link canal will be included. The second phase, on the other hand, will see the construction of Lower Orr Dam and various barrages.
After a tripartite MoU was signed between the Centre and the two States in March 2021 for the implementation of the project, it was finally approved by the Union Cabinet in December that year, with a budget of ₹44,605 crore.
The project plans on transferring the declared surplus water of the Ken river by constructing the Daudhan Dam on it and using a 221-km canal, including a 2-km tunnel, to the Betwa river. Apart from this, the project is also expected to generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power.
It is also aimed at solving the water woes of the drought-prone Bundelkhand region by providing drinking water to 4.4 million people in about 12 districts of Madhya Pradesh and more than 2 million people in 10 districts of Uttar Pradesh.
As per an NWDA report, the project is also expected to provide annual irrigation to 8.11 lakh hectares and 2.51 lakh hectares of land Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.
While launching the works on the Daudhan Dam on December 25, Mr. Modi said the KBLP will bring prosperity to the Bundelkhand region. “The people of Bundelkhand struggled for every drop of water, but the previous governments did not find any permanent solution to the water crisis. Even after seven decades of Independence, disputes over river water between States continued, but no concrete efforts were made to resolve them,” he had said.
Spread between the northern parts of Madhya Pradesh and southern Uttar Pradesh, the partly-hilly region covers 13 districts in the two States and has for long suffered droughts and water shortages, prompting locals to move to other cities for employment. The region is also among one of the country’s most socio-economically backward regions.
Environmental issues
Even as the BJP governments at the Centre and in the two States continue to claim various benefits of the project, several environmental concerns have been flagged.
Among the most prominent is the project’s potential impact on the wildlife inside the Panna Tiger Reserve as the project is expected to cause massive deforestation, felling of over 2.3 million trees with a girth of 20 cm or more as per an estimate, and harm the local ecology due to the Daudhan Dam’s construction inside the forest.
Former Union Environment Minister and Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh has claimed that the project is likely to “submerge over 10% of the core area of the tiger reserve”. Concerns have also been raised that the project may hurt the tiger reintroduction programme in the Reserve which revived the feline population after it had locally gone extinct in 2009.
Apart from tigers, species like endangered vultures, mahseer fish, and gharials in the Ken Gharial Sanctuary are also feared to be impacted.
The Central Government is also yet to release hydrological data of the two basins claiming they are sensitive by virtue of being subsets of the international Ganga basin.
A Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court had in a 2019 report also flagged various wildlife clearances to the project, claiming that the authorities had not considered its impact on the Gharial Sanctuary and the vulture nesting sites. It had also warned of serious impacts on the riverine flora and fauna of the Ken river as well as the unique ecosystem of the region.
Experts also believe the data the government has banked on to conclude that the Ken river has surplus water is outdated and have demanded release of the latest figures.
Between 2005 and 2008, the then Panna Collector, Deepali Rastogi, had written to various Central and State Government departments, claiming that there was no surplus water in the Ken river.
In May, 2017, a group of 30 activists and experts had written to the Union Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, flagging several concerns regarding the project, including the possible displacement of at least 10 villages in Chhatarpur and Panna districts.
Published – December 29, 2024 02:03 am IST
