Bengaluru: On December 25, prime minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project at Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. The project is one of the several developmental projects that he inaugurated on the day, in honour of the 100th birth anniversary of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“Today, the foundation stone for the historic Ken-Betwa river interlinking project and the Dhaudhan Dam has been laid,” said Modi, in his address after the inauguration.
He went on to launch a scathing attack on the governance of the Indian National Congress both at the centre and state for previous terms before the BJP came to power, going as far as to blame the opposition party for the lack of water that Bundelkhand witnesses – because the party never even thought of a permanent solution for the water difficulties that people and farmers witness in the area.
Calling the interlinking of rivers a “mahaabhiyaan” (great campaign), Modi said that Madhya Pradesh is the first state where this project – which will ensure water security – is being implemented.
“Water security is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century,” he said. “In the 21st century, only that nation, that state, which has sufficient water and ideal water management will be able to progress…I consider it my duty to relieve the people of Madhya Pradesh of water stress.”
The past decade will be remembered in India’s history as an unprecedented decade of water security and water conservation, Modi added. “In the decades to come, Madhya Pradesh will be among the top economies of India. Here, Bundelkhand will play an important role. It will be of vital importance to build a viksit Bharat, viksit Madhya Pradesh,” he said in his address on the day.
The main theory behind the Ken-Betwa interlinking project – which, according to the government, will generate 103 megawatts of hydropower, 27 MW of solar power, bring drinking water to about 62 lakh people and irrigate some 10.62 lakh hectares of land every year – is shockingly simple: construct a 230-km long canal that will carry water from the River Ken in Madhya Pradesh and take its water to the River Betwa in Uttar Pradesh.
The science is clear: interlinking is a bad idea
But nothing is that simple. Especially when a region’s ecology, environment and impacts on its people are involved. As students of wildlife conservation, stalwarts taught us that ecology is a tough science: there are a mind-boggling array of factors at play here, and these factors are not only hugely dynamic but also interact with each other.
Take for instance, hydrology or the science of studying water movement which also includes water underground, in rivers, river basins and their catchment areas. The fulcrum of the river interlinking project rests on the assumption that there are “water-surplus” and “water-deficit” basins, and that diverting water from the water-surplus area into the water-deficit one is very efficient because it addresses two things: diverting the excess water that ‘goes to waste’ in the water-surplus basin, using this water instead to fill up the water-deficit basin.
But this concept of water-surplus and water deficit systems is itself flawed, hydrologist Jagdish Krishnaswamy has told this reporter when we have spoken about river interlinking several times. And Krishnaswamy would know: he has been working on rivers and their flow, among other things, for more than 30 years now.
No water ever goes to waste in natural systems, Krishnaswamy and other scientists write in this piece. River water that people do not use flows downstream, sustaining numerous ecosystems – including other people – in the process. In fact, the sediments that rivers bring to deltas (where they meet the sea) is critical to enabling life and economies in these highly productive zones. Estuaries – the marginlands of rivers and the sea – thrive with a huge diversity of fish; mangroves here also serve as nurseries that help replenish fish stocks in these water bodies that fisherfolk depend on for both livelihood and sustenance. The sediments that flowing rivers bring to the sea are also why we have natural beaches along India’s coast. So rivers have to flow. They have to sweep into the sea. Damming them or diverting their water so that the “water does not go to waste” reduces a river to a mere commodity, an object whose only role is to carry water.
Also read: New Research Raises Fresh Doubts About India’s River Linking Plans
Moreover, the government hasn’t released hydrological data to support its claim that Ken is a ‘surplus’ basin and Betwa, a ‘deficit’ basin in the public domain, water expert Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, told this reporter in 2021.
A recent study further drives home the fact that river interlinking is a terrible idea – because it could alter the Indian summer rains and dry rivers in some seasons. The study, conducted by a team including climate scientists at IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and published in September 2023 in the journal Nature Communications, examined how several land-based and atmospheric factors already interacting with each other could change if river-interlinking on a large scale occurs. They found that increased irrigation in new areas that these projects will bring about will reduce mean rainfall in September by up to 12% in many parts of India that are already water-stressed (including parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand). This reduced September rainfall, in turn, can dry rivers during the post-monsoon season, thus “augmenting water stress across the country and rendering interlinking dysfunctional”, they noted. Essentially, the hydrology of water basins are not independent of each other: they are intricately connected.
Overriding concerns and laws
One chief concern about the Ken-Betwa project has been the issue of displacement of villagers. As per some estimates, around 20 villages – nearly 6,000 families – will be displaced.
Another concern is the loss of at least 23 lakh trees in the Panna Tiger Reserve that the project will cause. Experts have told this reporter that the forests here are a “hydrological asset” in the other-wise drought stricken land: they help sequester water, making groundwater available in the area.
Scientists have also argued how the Ken-Betwa interlinking project involves constructing the ‘Daudhan dam’ on the Ken river in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district, inside the Panna Tiger Reserve will submerge Critical Tiger Habitat – around 58 square kilometers of the core zone of the Reserve. Habitat fragmentation and loss of connectivity caused by the project will also cause an indirect loss of another 105 sq km Critical Tiger Habitat. It’s ironic that Critical Tiger Habitat in a Park – where India’s national animal went locally extinct by 2008-09, but was successfully reintroduced, and now has at least 60 of the big cats – is going to be lost. A study in 2021 found that the lands that will be submerged in Panna are also highly biodiverse areas: be it trees, other vegetation or ungulates such as the sambar (Rusa unicolor) that are important prey for tigers and other carnivores in the area.
A board at the Bhusour gate of the Panna Tiger Reserve announcing the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project. Photo: Veditum-SANDRP
India has laws in place to prevent such ecologically disastrous schemes. But tragically, these too have been ignored and bent to ensure that the Ken-Betwa interlinking project becomes a reality as it has today. These include laws pertaining to wildlife clearance, environmental impact assessments, and more.
“Today the PM is giving one more evidence of the difference between his ‘talk’ and ‘walk’ on environment and forest matters. The Ken-Betwa river linking project for which he is laying the foundation stone today poses a serious threat to the biodiversity-rich Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh,” said senior Congress leader and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh in a post on social media platform X on December 25.
“The project will submerge over 10% of the core area of the tiger reserve. Not only prime tiger habitats – but also those of other species like vultures – will be lost. The ecosystem will be bifurcated. More than 23 lakh trees are to be felled. Construction activities will be a severe disturbance. Three cement factories are being planned, one already commissioned in the vicinity of the park. And there are questions on the basic assumptions on surplus water itself. What is unfortunate is that there are alternatives for executing the project (like locating the dam upstream) without causing such extensive ecological damage,” he added.
But according to Modi, the project has been envisioned by keeping in mind the creatures of Panna Tiger Reserve.
“Over the last year, nearly two and a half lakhs of tourists visited Panna Tiger Reserve alone,” said Modi. “I am happy that the link canal that will be built here will be done keeping the lives of the creatures of Panna Tiger Reserve in mind.”
The interlinking of the Ken and Betwa will be the first nail in the coffin as far as interlinking of rivers and river basins in India goes: it lays the foundation for more such hare-brained interlinks to be implemented. The National Perspective Plan of 1980 has proposed 30 interlinks, spanning 37 rivers. So in queue, after the Ken-Betwa, are the Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal, the Godavari-Cauvery, the Par-Tapi-Narmada and many, many more.
Ignoring science
The union government’s decision to go ahead with the interlinking of the Ben-Betwa rivers despite all the concerns raised – legal, social, ecological and environmental – is just one of the many examples where India has consistently ignored science to implement schemes that are mightily vain and completely unnecessary.
Don’t get me wrong: India’s top brass do know that science is important. And they’ve said it too.
“To protect nature is important… But for this today, we also need scientific data, research, analysis, and knowledge of trends,” Yadav said, commenting on the need for science while justifying the importance of the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 on the day of its launch on December 21, just four days before the grand inauguration of the Ken-Betwa interlinking project.
And yet, it is astonishing, disheartening and at the same time unsurprising – both as a wildlife biologist and as a reporter – to see how this need for robust science is put into practice only when the government at the helm fancies it.
Also read: Ken-Betwa River Linking Project: A Recipe for Bulldozing Public Policy Amidst Environmental Concerns
One case in point is Project Cheetah. In September 2022 and February 2023, despite warnings from scientists and conservationists, India imported 20 adult African cheetahs (a subspecies different from the Asiatic cheetah, which was found in India) from Namibia and South Africa to “reintroduce” the species to select grassland habitats in the country. Eight of them have died and some of those deaths could have been avoided, experts have told this reporter. After a long stay in captivity, only two adult cheetahs now run free in the wild in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park; as per a news report on December 23, one male is now close to the Rajasthan border. Previously, cheetahs that “strayed” out of Kuno (well – that’s what cheetahs do; they are long-ranging big cats), they’ve been tranquilized and brought back: something that scientists have often called out for the impacts it could have on the animals’ health.
Scientists have cited several reasons why Project Cheetah is not a great idea. One is that it diverts crucial conservation funds from other endemic grassland species such as the Great Indian bustard, which is Critically Endangered. Another is that Kuno was supposed to have been a site for authorities to relocate Asiatic lions into. Currently, all Asiatic lions – a subspecies that used to dwell in many parts of western and central India – are found only in Gujarat. As the lion population increases in Gujarat (a good sign) and lions become more common in rural and even coastal areas – including areas that people live in – it becomes increasingly evident that at least some of these lions need a new home. But now, Kuno looks extremely unlikely as a potential Asiatic lion dwelling: authorities are so caught up with the world’s fastest land mammal that India’s very own Asiatic lions are no longer even in the picture.
Another case in point is the slew of developmental projects that the union government – again, ignoring science, and scientists and their warnings – is going to implement on the Great Nicobar Island soon. Authorities may cut down up to one crore trees for the projects; endemic species such as the Nicobar megapode, and giant leatherback turtles that nest on its beaches could be threatened; the Shompen and Nicobarese – indigenous tribal communities who live there – could also be at risk. Those are only just a few of the many impacts that the projects will have. The latest India State of Forest Report states that the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have lost around 4.6 sq km of mangrove cover over the last two years. “It will only get worse with the proposed projects,” a scientist who has worked in Great Nicobar Island told this reporter a day ago.
“The Ken-Betwa river interlinking national project will change the picture of Bundelkhand,” Modi said, on X, on December 25.
Indeed it will, prime minister. What the ignoring of science will now mean for the Ken-Betwa and the hugely changed waterscape, riverscape, agriscape and people-scape that it will bring about is something we will, now, only have to wait and watch.