In a country where nearly 600 million people face high to extreme water stress and where per capita water availability has dropped sharply from 5,177 m³ in 1951 to about 1,400 m³ today, water security has rightly taken centre stage in policy discussions.

The government’s flagship plan, the National River Linking Project (NRLP), proposes nothing short of a hydrological transformation on a grand scale: linking over 60 rivers, building a canal network of 15,000 km, connecting 3,000 reservoirs, and transferring 174 billion m³ of water every year from the so-called surplus basins to deficit regions.

The price tag? A staggering Rs 8.5 lakh crore (around $168 billion), a figure that could rise to Rs 21.9 lakh crore as inflation, execution delays, and project complexities pile up.

At the heart of this ambitious programme is the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP), the first river-linking project to take off on the ground. With an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crore ($5.06 billion), the KBLP plans to divert water from the Ken River in Madhya Pradesh to the Betwa River in Uttar Pradesh.

The promise is irrigation for 10.6 lakh hectares of farmland, drinking water supply for 62 lakh people, and 130 MW of hydropower generation along with solar energy. The key infrastructure includes a 77-metre-high Daudhan Dam and a 221-km canal cutting across the drought-hit Bundelkhand region.

However, as work begins, serious cracks are emerging in the grand narrative.

The Human Cost: The project is set to displace at least 21 villages, home to over 7,000 families, many of whom belong to the Gond and Kol tribal communities. It is not just about losing farmland—ancestral homes, cultural heritage, and forest-based livelihoods all are at stake.........

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