MoEF panel stalls Ken-Betwa EC, asks for taking up wildlife clearance first

Environment clearance for Centre's ambitious Ken-Betwa river linking project has hit a roadblock as an expert panel of Union environment ministry has decided to look into the project only after its wildlife clearance and related issues are taken up for appraisal. Senior officials of the union ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation told dna that the environment ministry's expert panel does not want to take any call on the issue before the project's crucial wildlife issues pertaining to Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) are addressed.

The Union environment ministry's expert appraisal committee (EAC) on hydroelectric and river valley projects has taken up the project's clearance for discussions thrice since October and in this decision was taken in the last meeting on February 8. "Earlier the EAC had asked National Water Development Agency to prepare a landscape management plan in collaboration with Wildlife Institute of India and it had also asked the agency to look into the project's impact on Panna tiger habitat. But after the last meeting, they have decided to first see what decision is taken on the project's wildlife clearance," said the senior official from water resources ministry on the condition of anonymity.

The Ken-Betwa river linking project has already received nod from the Madhya Pradesh government and according the sources from both environment and water resources ministry, the National Board for Wildlife will appraise the project's wildlife clearance proposal.

Conceived under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government, the Ken-Betwa river linking project's will link Ken River in Madhya Pradesh to Betwa in Uttar Pradesh for providing irrigation to 6.35 lakh hectares of land. The project has come under intense scrutiny from environmental activists both in Madhya Pradesh and nationally on the basis of hydrological reasons and wildlife reasons.

Key reasons among the opposition to this project is the submergence of 41 sq.km of forest in Panna tiger reserve (PTR) and 14 sq.km of forest in Chattarpur and the division of the tiger habitat. Wildlife activists also point out that Panna Tiger Reserve has already faced an existential crisis when in 2009, tigers depleted from the protected area. According to the the project's nodal agency National Water Development Agency (NWDA), the project will also involve construction of a dam near Daudhan village in Chhatarpur district and a total of 1585 villages across 10 villages will be displaced by the project.