‘Ken-Betwa link will benefit tigers’

Impounded water from the Daudhan dam will increase prey for the big cats, says Ministry.

A view of bed of river Betwa almost dried in hot summer in outskirts of Bhopal on Monday. Photo: PTI

The Union Water Resources Ministry, which is spearheading the Ken-Betwa river inter-linking project to irrigate six lakh hectares in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, has told the Union Environment Ministry that many measures are in place to ensure that territories and habitats of tigers and vultures in the region are not damaged.

The Ministry was responding to a report filed on Monday by wildlife experts, constituted by the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), who warned of dangers to wildlife resident in the core region of the Panna tiger reserve.

The Hindu reported on the contents of the report on Monday.

NBWL clearance is necessary for the go-ahead and subsequent commissioning of the Rs 9,000-crore project that proposes to irrigate the drought-ravaged Bundelkhand region.

‘New water bodies’

The project involves building the 288-metre Daudhan dam, and transfer of surplus water from the Ken river basin to the Betwa basin. This will submerge nearly 4,141 hectares of the Panna tiger reserve — held as model of tiger conservation after its numbers fell from 35 in 2006 to zero in 2009, and rose again to at least 18 after seven years of conservation — and could also mean that one tigress and her cub and some of the vultures resident in the area may have to adjust to new surroundings.

“On the contrary, water that will result in the region may lead to new water bodies that will draw herbivores and thus prey and carcasses for the tiger and the vultures,” said a source in the Water Ministry.

The Madhya Pradesh government had promised 8,000 hectares of alternate forest land as compensation and much of it — currently barren — would be replenished with vegetation that had once existed in the region, the source added.

“There will be some inconvenience to wildlife but we are watering 6.35 lakh hectares and improving the lot of nearly 70 lakh people…I think the cost and benefit is evident,” said another official.

Experts unconvinced

Wildlife experts aren’t convinced. Raghu Chundawat, conservation biologist who has worked on tiger conservation in Madhya Pradesh, says the project will not channel water to drought prone regions of Bundelkhand.