Chhatarpur/Panna, Madhya Pradesh: It was the first week of April; the heat was already punishing–40 degrees, made worse by the region’s dry, arid landscape. In a village of about 700 people called Dhodhan in the northern Madhya Pradesh district of Chhatarpur, 8 km inside the core area of the Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR), more than 20 men were huddled under a thatch and stick lean-to leading to the village. 

They looked visibly stressed.

Dhodhan and 13 other villages in Chhatarpur district, according to a document dated 4 October 2023 issued by the office of the district collector and the deputy secretary of the state’s revenue department, will be submerged over the next eight years.  Also set to be evacuated by the forest department are eight villages in the adjoining Panna district, as noted in the minutes of a 22 June 2023 meeting of the national water development agency (NWDA). 

The displacement of these villages will be the first step in a sprawling, controversial project first proposed 30 years ago to transfer surplus water from the Ken river to the Betwa river, both of which rise in the highlands of Madhya Pradesh and join the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh.

The people of these 22 villages—about 7,000 in all—will be collateral damage of the Ken-Betwa Link Project, the foundation stone for which was laid by prime minister Narendra Modi in December 2024 and has been favoured for years by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

These displacements are governed by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (RFCTLARR or LARR Act), which requires prior notice, public consultation, and fair compensation. Villagers in nine villages we spoke to complained of violations of the law and limited or no consultation.

Their impending displacement is the latest in many nationwide battles (here, here and here) that indigenous communities find themselves waging to protect their land, livelihood and way of life. 

The Ken-Betwa Link is the first and part of a broader national plan to interconnect rivers across India through 30 major link projects—16 for the Indian peninsula or south India & 14 for north India—using a network of canals, dams, and reservoirs. The project aims to transfer water from regions with surplus to those facing shortages, to ease drought, manage floods, and support agriculture, drinking water and local livelihoods. The plan may take decades to be realised.

The concept of interlinking India's rivers, a vision that has endured for over a century, was first proposed in the 19th century by British general and irrigation engineer Arthur Cotton. He envisioned a network connecting major rivers to improve irrigation and navigation and addressing India’s floods and droughts. 

Despite post-independence interest in large-scale infrastructure, this idea did not gain significant traction until 1980, when the ministry of irrigation (now the ministry of jal shakti) devised a national perspective plan to transfer water from surplus to deficit basins. This marked the beginning of the national river linking project.

Dhodhan, with no electricity or piped water, is the site for the Daudhan Dam, awarded to NCC Ltd, a Hyderabad-based private infrastructure company, in November 2024, the first major construction under the Ken-Betwa Link Project. Villagers and forest workers said that work began in mid-February but without prior notice, gram sabha consultations or the full compensation to residents of the affected villages, most of them Adivasis, about to lose their homes.

The Long Haul

The Ken-Betwa Link Project has been in the making since 1995. Since August 2005, multiple memoranda of understanding (MoUs) have been signed by the state governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, and the union government. 

The project's detailed project reports (DPRs) were finalised in phases. Owing to environmental and displacement concerns and lack of consensus among stakeholders, for Ken-Betwa in particular and river-interlinking in general, it never took off.

Finally, in December 2021, the union cabinet approved the Ken-Betwa project at a cost of Rs 44,605 crore. It proposes to irrigate parts of six districts, namely: Panna,· Tikamgarh and Chhattarpur in Madhya Pradesh, and Jhansi, Mahoba and Banda in Uttar Pradesh.

The project has two phases. The first involves the construction of the Daudhan Dam inside the core area of the Panna Tiger Reserve, along with a 221-km canal to transfer water from the Ken basin to the Betwa basin. The Daudhan Dam is designed to be about 77 metres high and 2,031 metres long. 

It also includes two hydropower stations with a combined capacity of 103 MW, a 27 MW solar power plant, and irrigation infrastructure aimed at covering 10.62 lakh hectares of farmland across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. 

Phase II has three components that include Kotha Barrage, Lower Orr Dam and Bina Complex Project. Expected to be completed by 2030, the project will provide drinking water to around 6.2 million people.

In July 2023, the ministry of jal shakti sought an exemption from standard forest clearance rules to speed up work, a move many experts questioned (here and here). Final forest clearance, pertaining to the use of forest land, came in October 2023. A Supreme Court-appointed central empowered committee’s report on the project’s impact on wildlife remains under examination by the apex court.  

Pitched as a solution to the parched region of Bundelkhand—seven districts of Uttar Pradesh and six in Madhya Pradesh, a region spanning nearly 70,000 sq km, more than the combined size of Goa, Manipur, and Nagaland—the project has been criticised for the displacement it will cause, the ecological damage it could trigger, and the limited role for local communities.

Between 2014 and 2023, more than 144,000 hectares of forest land was “diverted” nationwide for mining, dams, roads, transmission lines and other infrastructure. Of this, the union government approved cutting or submerging more than 6,600 hectares of forest for hydroelectricity. In 2019-2020 alone, the government approved 4,634 hectares for removal or submergence, the highest in 15 years.

Water Shortages May Worsen  

Environmental concerns have always dogged the Ken-Betwa project, with experts pointing out (here and here) that diverting river flows can damage fragile ecosystems. A 2023 study in Nature, a global scientific journal, reported that river interlinking could actually worsen drought in water-scarce regions by cutting rainfall and upsetting soil moisture. 

That study reinforced the scientific view that forests are vital to the process of storage of rain and to evaporation and the formation of rain clouds (here and here). 

According to Global Forest Watch, an online platform that tracks forests, Madhya Pradesh had about 1.97 million hectares of natural forest in 2020, covering around 6.4% of the state’s land area. By 2023, the state lost about 392 hectares of natural forest — a loss that could release roughly 83,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Experts have, for years, warned of ecological imbalances because of the Ken-Betwa project, further weakening the region’s already fragile relationship between rivers, forests, rainfall, and local climate stability.

“If a project has taken almost four decades to be executed, there has to be a reason,” said S K Sarkar, a distinguished fellow at The Energy And Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, also former secretary at the ministry of water resources. ​​

Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network On Dams, Rivers And People (SANDRP), an informal network of organisations and individuals working on  water sector subjects, said that there are a large number of issues with the Ken-Betwa project. 

“One major issue is, of course, the question of justification of the project,” said Thakkar, who has previously appealed at the National Green Tribunal against the environmental impact assessment of the project. He said there may also not be sufficient water for a dam, as hydrological figures were never published or independently scrutinised. “So essentially, we are told to assume that there is surplus water in Ken without any figures,” he said.

Sarkar agreed and said it was not just the dam to consider, but also the forests and soil that would be disturbed. “There will be canals, people will be displaced, all kinds of things are there,” he said. 

The river, Sarkar said, has its own life. “River flows should not be disturbed. If you disturb the river flow, then the filtration will be dead, and all kinds of problems will come, environmental issues will come.”

Thakkar listed the major lapses in conducting the environmental impact assessment. “It is one of the shoddiest I have ever seen,” he said, “and it is most inaccurate. In fact, it is a cut and paste job very clearly and it does not even mention what are the kind of impacts it will have on Panna Tiger Reserve.” He said the impact assessment report mentioned species that only exist in Manipur, suggesting that the report had lifted portions of the EIA conducted for the Tipaimukh Dam in Manipur. 

The publicly available environmental impact assessment, published in 2012 by NWDA and AFC India Ltd (formerly Agricultural Finance Corporation Ltd), a multi-disciplinary consulting company partly owned by the government, claimed that none of the species of aquatic plants falls under ‘rare or endangered or endemic or threatened’ categories (REET).

A March 2022 study by MDPI, a Switzerland-based open-access academic publisher, analysed how conservation approaches in tiger landscapes have focused on a single species and their habitat. The same study said that the forests of Panna are home to endangered animals and many rare and vulnerable plant species critical to the region’s biodiversity, which don’t always receive as much attention as its wildlife.

However, the region, apart from being instrumental in increasing the tiger population in India, is also home to two globally threatened Mahseer species (Tortor and Tor putitora) and has Indian subcontinent-endemic sloth bears that have been classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s Red List, the world’s most comprehensive information source on global extinction risk status.

Then there’s the Ken Gharial Sanctuary, spread over 45.2 sq km, almost 25 km north of PTR. It is home to the critically endangered gharials, endemic to the Indian subcontinent. “Habitat modification by river damming and water extraction has caused a severe decline in its population,” said a December 2023 study by Cambridge University Press, a global academic publisher.

On The Brink Of Erasure

In March 2022, the ministry of jal shakti told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, that the Daudhan reservoir alone would submerge about 9,000 hectares—almost the size of Chandigarh—including 4,141 hectares from the core of the Panna Tiger Reserve, 1,314 hectares from its buffer zone, and 2,171 hectares of land from 10 villages in the nearby region. 

Around 1,913 families living in these villages are expected to be affected. An additional 11 villages will be removed to make way for the canal, impacting and displacing over 7,000 families, wildlife and trees, the BBC reported in February 2025. These areas are home to at least seven tribes, including the Gond, Birhor, Kharia, Majhi, and Parahi.

The disruption is immense for the families set to be displaced soon. 

Tensions ran high in the affected villages. Two days before this reporter met the villagers in Dhodhan and Palkuan (core area of PTR)—all of them farmers, mostly poor, some landless, and most of them belonging to Adivasi communities—they had, after repeated attempts to be heard, driven NCC construction workers out through the Bhusaur barrier, reported Amar Ujala, a Hindi newspaper and website, on 5 April 2025.

“We waited. We were patient. We let them work, thinking our voices will be heard. Our compensation will be deposited. But no one came to listen to us,” said Gauri Shankar Yadav, one of the villagers from Dhodhan, Chhatarpur district. “Our last resort was to come together collectively, stop the work and demand what we deserve,” he said, as more than a dozen other men sitting around nodded.

"If no clarity is given about our resettlement and compensation, we will all die by suicide,” said Yadav. “That's what we have decided.”

Resistance Over Payouts

Prashant Kumar Dixit, the chief executive officer of the Ken Betwa Link Project Authority, told Article 14 that work on the Daudhan Dam resumed after “some issues related to compensation.” 

“The issue was related to compensation. They (the villagers) spoke to the respective collectors and the issue was resolved,” he said. 

Dixit said the compensation is paid by the government of MP. “The concerns are being addressed at appropriate level with the respective officials,” he added.

The villagers in the submergence area first heard about evictions between 2007-08 when the forest reserve was trying to expand. Yadav said villagers held out on an offer of Rs 10 lakh per family, demanding Rs 15 lakh instead. When officials refused to revise the offer, villagers refused to move.

Then, a few years later, in 2015-16, the villagers started hearing about the Ken-Betwa link. 

News came in fragments. According to Yadav, at one of the handful of meetings held in that period, officials verbally offered Rs 25 lakh as compensation. Yadav said villagers, trusting that figure, signed some papers. It was many months later that the newspapers said the compensation had been fixed at Rs 12.5 lakh per family. 

Asked if the villagers had given “informed consent” as mandated by the compensation law, Yadav and others said no official had visited to explain the compensation package and the process of claiming it. “No one here knows much; we are illiterate and simple. We are like animals in a  jungle—if someone comes, we get scared and run,” said Yadav. 

Broken Promises

On 9 September 2023, the Madhya Pradesh cabinet approved a special rehabilitation and resettlement package for families affected by the Ken-Betwa project. It announced that land in the 22 affected villages would be purchased with the consent of residents, and the displaced would be resettled in line with their preferences and convenience.

For land in the submergence area, compensation would be paid at either 100% of the circle rate, a periodically reviewed state assessment of the minimum price of land, or as a lump sum of Rs 12.5 lakh per hectare (approx Rs 500,000 per acre)— whichever was higher. In addition to this, each displaced family was promised a minimum special grant of Rs 12.5 lakh.

But Yadav said no senior official had come to inform them, and the gram sabha, a general body meeting of adult village residents, had not been convened to discuss the matter.  

We reached out to Parth Jaiswal, district magistrate of Chhatarpur, through repeated calls and text messages from 22 April onwards. There was no response. 

Chhatarpur sub-divisional magistrate Akhil Rathore, who received a memorandum from protesting farmers on 15 April, Free Press Journal reported, told us these villages did not come under his jurisdiction.

In Koni, Panna district, in the buffer zone of the PTR, over 60 km from the Panna bus stand, we met Jaahar Gond, in his sixties, a small farm holder with eight acres of land.

In the courtyard of his home—an open space flanked by two thatched huts—he was spreading out a heap of mahua flowers, gathered the day before, to dry under the afternoon sun. The flowers are an important part of the local Adivasi economy. Once dried, they are either stored for food, brewed into local liquor, or sold in village markets for some income.

He has never needed to step out of the village to earn a livelihood. “Never,” he said. 

Koni is one of the clusters of eight villages, including Kathari, Bilhata, and Gahdara, among others, marked for evacuation.

These villages, most of them without electricity or piped water and with the nearest health centre in Amanganj, over 25 km away, are designated for acquisition by the forest department, to make up for the 6,017 hectares of forest land that will be submerged inside the reserve. 

‘No Information, No Letter’

"Some people got letters of eviction. Some have started getting money for their farms, but I have got nothing--no information and no letter," said Jahaar, who has no idea what to do or where to go when they are driven out of their villages. 

The patwari told him to submit his identity details, which he did a few months back. "But there has been no update so far." 

To add to his woes, forest department officials, whom he referred to as “park waale,” barred him from farming on his land this season in anticipation of the eviction. His farm provided him and his wife two meals a day. “We are eating what's leftover from the previous harvest and collecting mahua from the two trees on our farm,” he said, waving at the mahua spread across his courtyard.

Villagers living in the forest—both in the buffer and core areas—typically have small farms. Some do not even have their names registered on the patta (land ownership document issued by the government). They primarily depend on farming wheat, mustard, and pulses (usually chana or gram, and arhar or pigeonpea), along with livestock-rearing and the collection of forest produce such as mahua (Madhuca longifolia), chirua (a fodder tree, usually Bauhinia species), and tendu patta (Diospyros melanoxylon, used for rolling bidis).

Jahaar's isn't an isolated story. At least 50 people this reporter spoke to across villages in Panna and Chhatarpur appeared clueless about the whole process of evictions, compensation and resettlement.

Mani Adivasi from Gahdara, Panna district, in the buffer zone of the PTR, was still to receive any compensation and was not sure about the progress in payments, rehabilitation, or resettlement. 

A few years ago, he said, he was informed that he’d have to leave, and would be paid Rs 12.5 lakh. “But I don't know when the money will come or where we have to go. We will see.”

Grazing his 25-30 goats in the scorching heat, he said he occasionally tills others' farms. “But that is rare,” said Adivasi. “We manage a few months' expenses by selling one of our goats." 

‘No One Is Sure What To Do’

“No one is sure about what to do or where to go,” said Mahesh Gond, one of the few villagers in Koni with a high school education. 

He works with a non-profit organisation which, in turn, works closely with the forest department. Employed at a modest stipend of Rs 1,500 per month, his work entails informing villagers how to safeguard themselves in case of tiger attacks, and helping them with compensation paperwork if the wild animals take their cattle. The afternoon we met him (in the first week of April), he was on his way to help a family that had lost a bull to a tiger.

Mahesh Gond, who has received a little over Rs 700,000 for his 1.5-acre farm, said the conversations about the Ken-Betwa link in his and the other villages in the cluster started over eight years ago. “The work has picked up speed in the last two years, and the impending evictions seem close.”

But most villagers haven't got the compensation or any information about it, he said, adding that he got to know about the details of the compensation while working with the forest officials. "But no gram sabha has happened."

The compensation law says that families can be eligible for compensation even if they don’t have official land titles. In areas where Adivasi (Scheduled Tribe) communities live, the law also requires that the gram sabha—which should include participation from women, Scheduled Tribe members, and landless residents— must give its consent before any land is acquired. It also provides extra protections to make sure the rights of tribal communities are respected during projects such as the Ken-Betwa river link.

Even the Forest Rights Act 2006 prohibits the eviction of forest dwellers until their rights are formally recognised. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 mandates prior public hearings and full disclosure for projects involving forest land or displacement.

We contacted Panna Tiger Reserve's field director, Anjana Suchita Tirkey, over text messages and calls, but she did not respond.

Legally, informing only the gram panchayat (village council) or a few leaders is insufficient. Under the LARR Act and the FRA, the full gram sabha must be convened, informed, and its consent formally recorded before any displacement action is taken.

Kali Bai and her husband from Kathari village own no farmland; all the land that they till belongs to her father-in-law and his brother. "They have five acres of land, and I hear some money has been paid to them (as compensation for the land). But we haven't received anything," Kali Bai said, sitting inside a small grocery store, dimly lit by a blinking solar-powered bulb. 

Kathari has no electricity or piped water. Last April, Kali Bai received Rs 1.2 lakh (in her husband’s account) “to build the house.” She isn't sure whether the money came under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) or for the Ken-Betwa Link Project. Either way, more than half the money has already been spent.

“We weren't allowed to farm this year because the eviction drive has become  stronger,” she said. “In such a situation, what else could we do? Whatever little money we had, we had to spend on food.”  

Like most women in her village, she doesn't know where she will go. “Wherever everyone goes, I will also go.”

The Cost Of Poor Guidance

In his early thirties, Rajesh Singh Gond is casually seated on a motorbike, at a junction connecting Gahdara, Koni, and Bilhata villages. He has no land registered in his name; his mother owns around three acres. For nearly a decade, Rajesh has been migrating seasonally (in the non-harvest season) to Mumbai and Goa, working in factories as a moulder. 

“Our Adivasi brothers and sisters don't have the brains,” he said bluntly. “They haven't negotiated properly with the authorities. Whatever little money some (of them) have received, they’re spending it—on alcohol, bikes, cars. When the time comes to leave, when they realise the money’s gone and there’s no land or house, they will struggle," he said. After a pause, he added, "Because no one told them what to do with the money. No one showed them where to find land, or how to start again. They’re going to struggle.”

Amit Bhatnagar, an activist and member of the Aam Aadmi Party, agreed that villagers in the forest would have never seen such substantial sums of money.  “Because it is difficult for them to commute to markets and city centres from the remote areas that they live in, the first instinct is always to buy a bike,” he said, unsure if there’s data to back the claim. “Since they are new to riding bikes and the roads are mostly unpaved, many of them die, leaving their struggling families.”

Resistance Brings Struggles

In 2015, when the state’s forest department initiated a relocation drive in Umravan village located in the core area of PTR, of the 70 families then living in the village, 61 were displaced. Over time, as children grew up and married, the nine families that resisted and stayed back in Umravan have expanded to 18. 

Umravan’s residents said while the promised compensation was Rs 10 lakh, only Rs 7.6 lakh was credited to their accounts. They refused to leave.

Gauni Bai, a resident of Umravan knows only too well the struggles around resisting eviction. For nearly a decade that she and others in Umravan have fought for their rights, life has been rendered difficult by forest officials, she said. 

“It has been more than 10 years since I farmed my own fields. They don't let us,” she said. Every harvest season, she and others travel to the neighbouring Madla or other nearby areas to work as daily wage labourers on farms, earning about Rs 250–Rs 300 per day. 

“Even that is now unsafe,” she said, narrating an incident from 17 March 2025, when the house of Nimatiya Bai, another villager, was looted and destroyed while the family was away for work. “No case has been filed so far; it's been refused (by the officials),” Gauni Bai said. “Now we are scared to even go and earn the little we could.”

Three villagers from Umravan told Article 14 that they believed this was a “deliberate attempt to drive them out” of Umravan. “Over the years, they (the local forest officials) have broken the roads, cut electricity and piped water connection,” said Mahendra Kumari Rajgor, another villager and a primary school teacher.

Contesting The Compensation 

Bhatnagar, who has been consistently protesting for the rights of displaced villagers, alleged that key provisions of the compensation law and the forest law have been openly violated. “You have to understand—most of these villages don't even have electricity or a stable phone network.” Located deep inside the forest, these villages have no easy access to information or news.

Yadav said everything feels fuzzy and unclear. 

For the last eight years, authorities have been coming to survey the land, but it was only last year that payments for houses and farmland started trickling in. “There is no clarity on how the sum has been calculated,” he said. “Even for pucca houses built with construction material transported from scores of kilometres away, the compensation (for the loss of the house) is as low as Rs 30,000 or Rs 50,000. How do you start over with that?"

The main rehabilitation package (the special grant) of Rs 12.5 lakh per family, said Yadav, has still not arrived. "My three brothers have received money for their houses, but three of us haven't yet," he added.

In the neighbouring village of Palkuan, Munnu Raikwar led this reporter through his freshly painted, spacious home, built and improved over years. He wondered  how the compensation offered—Rs 72,000, split equally between him and his son—could be considered a fair compensation. “I really want to understand how the calculation was done. Do you think a house like this can be built in that amount at a new location?” he asked.

Tulsi Kumar Adivasi, also from Dhodhan, pointed to a deeper, growing problem. He explained that the last official list of adults eligible for compensation was prepared in 2022. 

Since 2022, according to him, at least 200 children in the three villages located inside the core area of PTR—Dhodhan, Palkuan, Khairyani—here have turned 18 years of age. “They are adults now. They will also lose their homes, but they are not eligible because they were underage when the survey happened,” he said.

Tulsi Kumar Adivasi said people also want to be relocated together, not scattered across different places. “We don't want to be broken apart,” he said.

In the third week of April, the villagers in Dhodhan received an updated list with names of people eligible for the rehabilitation package. The earlier cutoff date (to identify adults eligible for the rehabilitation package) of 2022 was now revised to  16 February 2024.

We reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Madhya Pradesh spokesperson Neha Bagga with a detailed questionnaire, on email and by text message. A response is awaited.

This Is Just The Beginning

The Daudhan Dam is only the first step of the Ken-Betwa Link Project under Phase I. Phase II will include the Lower Orr Project, the Kotha Barrage, and the Bina Complex Multipurpose Project. Work on these has not yet started. 

Once all components are initiated, the overall displacement and environmental damage could rise sharply, though the public reports do not explain what would happen to other villages in the region.

In Panna district’s Lalar village, deep inside the core area of the PTR, at least ten villagers told this reporter that government officials—though it’s unclear whether they were from the forest department or the Ken-Betwa project team—have been visiting to survey land and negotiate with residents.

Talking to Article 14, Kusum Rani, 50, stood firm in her resolve and refused to budge. “They are offering Rs 5 lakh for an acre. Can you find a house anywhere for that amount?" she asked. “Do whatever you want; I am not going to leave my house,” she added.

The Risk Assessment Report for the Ken-Betwa project, prepared by AFC India Ltd with help from IIT Roorkee, flags Lalar village among the 29 settlements located along the right bank of the Ken River and 48 settlements on the left bank that would need to be evacuated “within 30 minutes” in the eventuality of a dam break. 

Lalar lies about one km from the river and about 10 km downstream of the proposed Daudhan Dam. No formal evacuation or resettlement plan has been shared with residents of the village.

Lalar is not the only village living under the shadow of displacement. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Khajuraho in December 2024 to inaugurate the Ken-Betwa Link Project, Kabar village in Chhatarpur district has also seen increased activity by government officials—again, their exact department remains unclear.

“A few vehicles with officials come almost every day,” said Mathura Prasad Patel, in his 50s, a resident of Kabar. He said officials survey the land without stating why. They placed markers (with ‘KBLPA’ written on them) in three locations. One of these markers is installed on the grounds of a local middle school that caters to children from three nearby villages.

Waiting, Watching, Wondering

“We don’t know exactly what’s going to be built here,” said one of the school teachers, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But the marker clearly shows it’s for the Daudhan Dam.” He said perhaps a canal would run through the area, and if so the village could be displaced. If the school was removed, he said, children will lose access to education, with no alternate plans in sight.

On being asked about these growing concerns about the environment and displacements because of the project, Prashant Kumar Dixit, the CEO of the Ken-Betwa Link Project Authority,  said, “Right now, we don't have to say much because the project has just started up this year. But we are very much conscious about the environment. And our ministry is also concerned about the management of the R&R issues and the environment issues.” 

He said officials were monitoring the issues and regular meetings have been held in Delhi regarding these issues. 

Yet, the uncertainty persists. Sarkar cannot say whether the linking would succeed hydrologically, ecologically, or in terms of biodiversity. “We have to wait and see,” he said. 

On 25 December 2024, hundreds of buses organised by the state machinery and the state unit of the BJP ferried people from distant villages to Khajuraho, some from over a 100 km away, to attend the project inauguration event where the prime minister was present. Villagers in the project-affected villages, however, were not among those mobilised. No buses came, they said. 

We tried to verify this claim and reached out to the state’s department of water resources, but did not receive a response.  

Earlier, on 19 December 2024, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav attended a kisan sammelan or farmers’ meet organised under the Ken-Betwa Link Project at Satai Stadium in Chhatarpur. However, villagers from Dhodhan and Palkuan alleged they were baton-charged and stopped at the Bhusaur barrier when they tried to travel to the event.

Thakkar, a long-time critic of the Ken-Betwa Link Project, recalled a conversation with a senior ministry of water resources official about possible alternatives. At the time, the project was estimated to cost around Rs 20,000 crore.

“He said, ‘this is a 20,000 crore question,’” Thakkar recounted. “Today, (the cost of the project) is Rs 46,000 crore. And it is not going to stop at Rs 46,000 crore. It is going to go into lakhs of crores possibly, or more.”

On 30 April 2025, indian news agency Press Trust of India reported that authorities associated with the project, in response to a query filed under the Right To Information Act 2005, said 1,160 of the 7,193 affected families in Panna and Chhatarpur districts were yet to accept the government's rehabilitation plan in the first phase. None had been rehabilitated yet.

(Priyanka Bhadani is a Delhi-NCR-based freelance journalist.)

Get exclusive access to new databases, expert analyses, weekly newsletters, book excerpts and new ideas on democracy, law and society in India. Subscribe to Article 14.