According to a recent report in The Times of India, “Hundreds of tribal farmers, mostly women, lay on mock funeral pyres in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district on April 9 during a protest against the proposed Ken-Betwa river linking project (KBRLP), signaling their resolve to oppose it till their last breath.”
These protests are a reflection of the many-sided serious concerns regarding the adverse impacts of this highly expensive and highly controversial project. Many senior scholars and environmentalists have voiced these concerns along with local villagers affected by displacement and deforestation related to this project.
The foundation stone ceremony of KBRLP took place on December 25, 2021 in the middle of a big publicity drive for the controversial Rs. 44,605 crore (approximately USD 5.3 billion) project. Officially this project was then publicized to have several benefits, including generating 103 MW hydroelectric power and 27 MW solar power, irrigating 10.62 lakh hectares of land and providing drinking water to 62 lakh people. The project involves the construction of the Daudhan Dam on the Ken river to take some of its declared “surplus” water to the Betwa river using a 221-km canal. The topmost officially stated benefit of this project is that it will contribute a lot to ending the water scarcity of Bundelkhand, a region spread over 14 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in Central India which has often been in news due to water scarcity. The government also sees the KBRLP as a beginning of a massive project to interlink many more rivers. As the first of this series of projects, the stakes for KBRLP are very high for the government and the powerful construction lobby.
Unfortunately, the government has chosen to ignore very serious adverse aspects associated with this project which several independent experts and official committees such as the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court have pointed out. These objections make it clear that the government cannot justify the construction of this project on grounds of viability and real assured benefits, and it is being promoted more as a prestige project, the starting point of the much wider project of linking many rivers.
Despite the entire publicity blitz, some basic questions regarding the viability and desirability of the project have not yet been answered in a satisfactory way by the authorities. The officially stated entire basis of the project is that the surplus water of Ken river is transferred to the Betwa river, but the availability of surplus in Ken river or in the Ken basin has not been established. In fact the Ken river as well as some of its tributaries have been very badly ravaged by sand mining in recent times, and having visited the region several times and discussed with local people, the main issue regarding the Ken river is that it should be protected from sand mining and should be given time to recover from all the past ravaging of the river. The livelihoods of several riverside farmers, particularly those of kevats and other riverside communities who have been mentioned in mythology with a lot of respect, have also been ravaged by sand mining and their famed farming — based on making very skilful use of land near the river for cultivating high-quality fruits and vegetables — has also suffered a lot. The Ken river needs protection and these farmers also need protection from sand mining. While the basic challenge ahead is to protect this river and the livelihoods of people related to it, the authorities are instead going ahead with transferring the water, which is a very harmful step. It is shocking that this basically undesirable and unviable step is being taken despite the fact that it also involves a lot of displacement of villagers, very large-scale deforestation and other harm to environment and livelihoods.
One frequently mentioned objection has been that the KBRLP involves felling about 23 lakh (2.3 million) trees, mostly in the Panna Tiger Reserve. Some estimates of trees threatened by this project are even higher. The Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court (CEC) noted: “The Sub-Committee of the Forest Advisory Committee in its Report has stated that the total number of trees of 20 cm. and above which are to be felled is around 23 lakh.” The reference here is to girth of trees. As between the time of this estimate and actual implementation the number of trees of this or higher girth can increase significantly, higher estimates are relevant for more recent times. The CEC estimated a loss of 10,500 hectares of wildlife habitat in the Panna Tiger Reserve.
In these times of climate change, there is no justification for a project that involves the axing of over 2 million trees. In fact, the decision-making should not have proceeded beyond this single issue. Once it is known that a project involves felling of over 2 million trees — or even one million or half a million trees — it should not be taken up. This is particularly true in the present case when there are so many other adverse impacts (including displacement of people) and uncertainties, and other ways of achieving the stated objectives are available.
As against these heavy ecological costs, the claims of ending water scarcity in Bundelkhand being made for this project are highly suspect. As pointed out by Ravi Chopra, founder of People’s Science Institute, which was involved in studying this issue, when the Ken and Betwa basins are adjacent to each other, they have similar weather and rainfall patterns, and experience droughts and floods simultaneously — the concept of surplus to deficit area is therefore meaningless. As another expert, Himanshu Thakkar, founder of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, has pointed out, the hydrological data used to justify such a huge project is not shared in a transparent way and appears to be dated.
Several local people, even some former government officials, have repeatedly questioned the basic premise of this project: that the Ken has surplus water for transferring to the Betwa. Any project based on unconfirmed claims only sows the seeds of future problems and tensions.
This project is being propagated as highly beneficial to Bundelkhand, but studies of water scarcity in Bundelkhand have mentioned deforestation as a leading cause of water scarcity — while the KBRLP involves the felling of 23 lakh trees, perhaps even more. These studies include one by the Vigyan Shiksha Kendra and IIT Delhi on the water scarcity of the Bundelkhand region. A key person for this study was Dr. Bhartendu Prakash, founder of Vigyan Shiksha Kendra, who has also voiced his opposition to KBRLP. He followed up his first study with another updated one in which he documented several alternative approaches based on water conservation especially suited to local conditions.
How Bundelkhand will benefit from this controversial project is not clear at all. A large number of villagers are likely to be displaced as per the details of this project. The multiple problems caused by dam construction to submerged villages and other nearby villages in Bundelkhand are now widely known following their detailed depiction in widely praised, award-winning Hindi novels
Doob and Paar, written by Virendra Jain. From time to time, some of the more destructive floods in Bundelkhand have been blamed on the arbitrary release of excess water by dams, as I saw while covering floods in Chitrakut and elsewhere. In addition, the very long canal this project envisages for linking will also involve several environmental disruptions along its long route.
Bundelkhand is known for its rich legacy of traditional water sources — for example, tanks constructed by the Chandela kings and others in many parts of Bundelkhand. The wealth of traditional water sources here has been a source of much discussion for their excellent planning and construction suited to local conditions. The repair, restoration and proper maintenance of these sources can play a very important role in resolving water scarcity. In the course of my extensive travels in this region I could see several water conservation efforts which are giving good results even after a very long time. Other kinds of water conservation works — including better and more successful planting of indigenous species of trees, better protection of remaining natural forests, repair and restoration of wells, and efforts for rejuvenation of rivers — can also contribute much to solving water scarcity.
Very encouraging results achieved by several small-scale water conservation and rainwater harvesting projects by voluntary organisations of this region have established the importance of such initiatives. The government can take up thousands of such initiatives at a lower budget than that of KBRLP.
It will be disastrous to opt for such a project which has no clear justification and yet will cause a lot of displacement and deforestation, wasting thousands of crores of rupees.
A letter signed by 30 experts and activists had been in the news earlier, registering a strong protest against this project and the arbitrariness involved in its implementation. This letter stated: “The project has been plagued by sloppy, intentionally misleading and inadequate impact assessments, procedural violations and misinformation at every step of the way.” The signatories included Amita Baviskar, a former member of the Forest Advisory Committee, and E.A.S. Sarma, former Secretary, Government of India. The letter stated that basic information about the water availability in the two rivers has not been made available, and other basic information has been held back from project-affected people. (Open Letter of Protest on Ken-Betwa Project to MoEF — SANDRP; Violations of Ken-Betwa EIA and Public Hearing Process.)
There is a large body of literature at the world level on problems created by huge water transfer schemes instead of relying on local conservation of water. This is all the more true of the Bundelkhand region, which has such a rich tradition of water conservation from ancient times. Certainly very good alternatives are available, and the government should give up the KBRLP while agreeing to spend this budget on other proven ways of water conservation and on various aspects of welfare and livelihood support for people. An excellent, ecologically protective source of minor irrigation is the Mangal Turbine, invented by farmer-scientist Mangal Singh from a village of Bundelkhand. It is this kind of promising initiative by local people which should be promoted, instead of taking up such highly wasteful and non-viable projects as KBRLP.
The government authorities can best show their true commitment to protection of the environment and to the repeatedly articulated concerns of people by withdrawing this highly controversial and misguided project, and instead allocating the same budget for people-led small-scale water conservation, minor irrigation, sustainable livelihood support and afforestation initiatives.
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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man over Machine (Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas for Our Times), Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, and Planet in Peril
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