Why the Centre is passing on issues raised by Ken-Betwa protesters to State governments | Explained
The story so far: Responding to questions about the Ken-Betwa River Link project in Madhya Pradesh raised by Opposition MPs in Lok Sabha, the Union
The story so far: Responding to questions about the Ken-Betwa River Link project in Madhya Pradesh raised by Opposition MPs in Lok Sabha, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs on Thursday (August 6, 2026) acknowledged that it had received several complaints about “issues of displacement” owing to the project but that it had sent all of these complaints to the Madhya Pradesh government and district authorities, saying that it was the State government that was responsible for implementing the forest rights law. Locals in Madhya Pradesh have been protesting for months, grabbing national attention on social media after visuals of their demonstration showed men and women placing a noose around the neck while some lay on symbolic pyres inside the waters of the Barana river in Chhattarpur district. The protest, first held in April, was relaunched in July after government efforts to engage with the protesters failed. Soon after the protests resumed, the police on July 19 cleared the protest site and forcibly took local activist Amit Bhatnagar of the Jai Kisan Sangathan to the hospital and removed nearly 150 protesters from the area. Bhatnagar had been on a hunger strike for 14 days at the time. The project Part of the Ken-Betwa river linking project is among 30 such link projects under a Perspective Plan (NPP) for water resources development and interlinking of rivers with ‘surplus water’ to those with ‘deficit water’, formulated in 1980 by the Ministry (then Union Ministry of Irrigation) and the Central Water Commission.
Under this project, the plan is to transfer declared surplus water of the Ken river by constructing the Daudhan Dam on it and using a 221-km canal, including a 2-km tunnel, to the Betwa river. Apart from this, the project is also expected to generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power. While the project involves the displacement of over 7,000 families, locals protesting the project has raised multiple issues with it. These include the demand for increased compensation, alleged irregularities in how the beneficiaries for the compensation and rehabilitation package were picked, and impropriety in the procedure for obtaining Gram Sabha consent for the project under the forest rights law of India. What was asked and what the Centre said? While the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry passed on issues related to the project to the State government, it was responding to specific questions raised by the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party MP Ajendra Singh Lodhi. The questions asked for the total number of families affected by the project, the number of them who are from tribal communities, and the number of them who had received partial and full compensation amounts as per the procedure.
The BriefWire