Vexed project looms over poll arena

At the forest entry gate to the Panna Tiger Reserve in Trikiya, the lone forest guard Hukam Singh, stands stoutly preventing “outsiders” from going to Daudhan village, where work on the first dam under Ken Betwa River Inter-Linking Project, envisaged two decades ago, is set to start in a few months. Villagers are protesting the project, over compensation for relocation, and this resulted in the state government cancelling the launch of the project by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 4, officials said.

- Chetan Chauhan

“We are not against the project. We just want better compensation,” said Mahesh Kumar Adivasi, a school teacher in Daudhan village, who has five acres of agriculture land within Panna Tiger Reserve buffer area, like thousands of tribals living in small muddy homes in and around the reserve. “We live like crocodiles in a lake,” he added, metaphorically referring to their tough life and said their protest started in August this year to ensure better lives for their children. The Central government, along with the Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh governments is implementing the ₹44,605 crore river-interlinking project, the country’s biggest, to benefit 13 districts of Bundelkhand --- six in Madhya Pradesh and seven in Uttar Pradesh. The MP government has decided to pay compensation of ₹15 lakh for every voter in a family (with husband and wife considered as one voter). Those living in the 21 villages that are to be relocated will also get ₹80,000 as compensation for their home and will have to pay ₹5.5 lakh if the government builds a house for them. “The money is grossly inadequate,” said Gauri Shankar Pathak of Jagdamba, another village that is to be relocated. “We will lose our land which has been feeding us for generations.”

Ken-Betwa Ambition

The then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2003 decided to transfer water from the surplus Ken river to the water deficient Betwa (both rivers in Bundelkhand) through the construction of series of dams and canals so as to provide sufficient drinking and irrigation water to the rain shadow region of Bundelkhand. The project was in limbo for 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) rule between 2004 and May 2014. The project was revived by the Modi government in August 2014.