What ails the Ken-Betwa river link project?

Last Updated26/01/2023

Recently the Steering Committee of the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) held its third meeting in New Delhi.

The link is a canal that will be fed by the new Daudhan Dam on the Ken, to be built within the Panna Tiger Reserve.
The dam will generate 103MW of hydroelectric power.
The linking canal will flow through Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh and Jhansi districts, with the project expected to irrigate 6.3 lakh hectares of land every year.
The government’s plan is based on a ‘surplus and deficit’ model that they have said has little basis in science.
They are also concerned that the project will endanger the water security of Panna.

India enacted the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 at a critical juncture, when its wildlife was in peril.
The act relate to setting aside areas of significance to wildlife as ‘sanctuaries’ and ‘national parks’.
- It restricts human activities within them without prior approval.
Diversion or stopping or enhancement of the flow of water into or outside wildlife sanctuaries/parks is taboo unless deemed necessary to improve and better manage wildlife within a sanctuary or a national park.
Downstream of the national park lies the Ken Gharial Sanctuary, created to protect the critically endangered Gangetic gharial (Gavialis gangeticus).

The, Ken-Betwa link Project has not been proved to be necessary for the improvement and better management of the wildlife therein as provided in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.. ”.
This categorical observation was made vis-à-vis plans to create a high reservoir-dam on the Ken river in the Panna National Park and Tiger Reserve for the KBLP.

Panna is an exceptional tiger habitat because of its deep gorges, which will be drowned if a new dam is built.
An illegal approval granted by a national board will bring to naught all the good, hard work of the past.
The government is also developing a larger ‘Panna Tiger Landscape’, but this is not the concession many believe it to be.
This landscape should be created in any case for Panna’s tigers.
Such landscape-level action is also required around most wildlife areas in light of a new global target to protect 30% of global terrestrial and marine areas by 2030, finalised at the COP15 biodiversity conference in December 2022.

Against this background, rushing the KBLP sans due diligence — both technical and legal — will intensify water conflicts between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh; dash locals’ longstanding expectations of irrigation and drinking water; and cost a decade’s labour and funds. \
Ahead of the forthcoming 2023-2024 Union budget, one hopes that we won’t be saddled with a textbook loss-loss project.