2 tigers vs 15 lakh people: Conflict holds up project

BHOPAL: A six-member National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) panel will this week recommend the way forward for the proposed interlinking of Ken and Betwa rivers in Madhya Pradesh, a project wildlife experts claim will prove detrimental to the Panna Tiger Reserve.

The interlinking project, India's first and worth Rs 17,000 crore, is aimed at providing drinking water to 15 lakh people and irrigating six lakh hectares in the parched Bundelkhand region.

Its execution will submerge a small part of the reserve -around 4,141 hectares -that serves as the “partial habitat“ of one tigress and her cub. It was on this ground that the then UPA government had denied the project environmental clearance in 2012.

The project will be shot down if the NBWL panel rules in favour of saving the area. “It is up to the Centre to decide whether it wants to keep the breeding site or get water for 15 lakh people in Bundhelkhand,“ said an NBWL officer.

“The reserve will lose only 7% of its core area, and there will be no damage to the area inhabited by vultures,“ the officer added.

The panel, which has as members wildlife expert R Sukumar and NBWL's H S Singh, among others, was formed to get environmental clearance for the project. Members of the panel have conducted a detailed study on the likely impact of the project on the reserve, and will present their report to Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar on April 30.

The Madhya Pradesh government is hopeful of getting clearance for the project, which now has the Centre's backing.