Ken-Betwa link hits green hurdle

Advisory panel disagrees with forest land allocation, wants canal re-aligned

NEW DELHI, 03/07/2012: Followers of Bhagwan Shree Lakshmi Narayan Dharm Trust, during peaceful rally in support of Save Yamuna in New Delhi on July 3, 2012 . Yamuna is the sub-basin of the Ganga river system. Out of the total catchment’s area of 861404 sq km of the Ganga basin, the Yamuna River and its catchment together contribute to a total of 345848 sq. km area which 40.14% of total Ganga River Basin (CPCB, 1980-81; CPCB, 1982-83). It is a large basin covering seven Indian states. . The river Yamuna traverses a distance of about 1370 km in the plain from Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh to the confluence with river Ganga at Allahabad. The major tributaries of the river are Tons, Betwa, Chambal, Ken and Sindh and these together contribute 70.9% of the catchment area and balance 29.1% is the direct drainage of main River and smaller tributaries. The river water is used for both abstractive and in stream uses like irrigation, domestic water supply, industrial etc. It has been subjected to over exploitation, both in quantity and quality. Given that a large population is dependent on the river, it is of significance to preserve its water quality. The river is polluted by both point and non-point sources, where National Capital Territory (NCT) – Delhi is the major contributor, followed by Agra and Mathura. Approximately, 85% of the total pollution is from domestic source. The condition deteriorates further due to significant water abstraction which reduces the dilution capacity of the river. The stretch between Wazirabad barrage and Chambal river confluence is critically polluted and 22km of Delhi stretch is the maximum polluted amongst all. In order to restore the quality of river, the Government of India (GoI) initiated the Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) in the1993and later YAPII in the year 2004 (CPCB, 2006-07). Photo Rajeev Bhatt.

India’s apex forest advisory body has imposed tough conditions on the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project. Given the ecological and environmental impact posed by the project, it had to pass multiple authorities for clearance. A forest advisory clearance was seen to be the last step before the project was to begin.

The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), the apex environment ministry authority that clears requests for diverting forest land for projects, usually rejects or recommends a proposal, sometimes with conditions, for the diversion of forest land. As minutes of the March 30 meeting — made public on Friday — show, in the case of the Ken-Betwa project, the FAC has refrained from explicitly giving its opinion either way and only seconded an earlier sub-committee’s report that had cleared the project subject to strict caveats.

‘Not unprecedented’

“This is unusual for the FAC but not unprecedented,” a person privy to the forest clearance process told The Hindu . the FAC’s recommendations are passed on to the environment minister, who can abide by them or reject them.

The ₹18,000 crore river interlinking project requires 4,141 hectares of forest in the heart of the Panna Tiger reserve, and some more besides, to build a dam and a 230-km canal to transfer water to several drought-afflicted villages in Bundelkhand.

As compensation for the pristine tiger habitat that would be inundated by the project, the Water Ministry had agreed to acquire about 8,000 hectares of forest land from the Madhya Pradesh government and revive them as forest.

But the FAC said this land was not good enough as it was fragmented, and, to meaningfully revive a forest that is part of tiger habitat, the land acquired ought to be contiguous. This would require, according to the FAC, “revenue lands/non-forest lands by way of purchase or otherwise by the project proponents and the government”.

While a State can relatively allocate forest land for Central projects, transferring private or revenue land is harder, time-consuming and costly. The FAC has also asked for the project’s main canal to be re-aligned.

A Water Ministry official told The Hindu that these measures are “impossible to comply with”. He said that senior water ministry officials were already preparing a rebuttal to “contest” the FAC’s recommendations. “The FAC has ventured into areas far beyond its mandate and we have frequently explained to the body why these conditions cannot be met. The same points repeatedly surface,” the same official added. Water minister Uma Bharti said on the sidelines of a conference on Friday that she had not seen the committee’s recommendations. She has previously stated that were the project not to be cleared, she would go on a hunger strike.