What does it take to link two rivers? Rs 44,605-crore, complex engineering — and the people by its banks

For the administration, the remaining months are about meeting engineering timelines, completing rehabilitation and clearing the reservoir before the next phase of construction. For the many families still living in the shadow of the Daudhan dam — one of the main architectural features under the project — it’s a struggle of a different kind: proving, through Aadhaar cards, school certificates, revenue records and decades-old family registers, that they belong to the places they are being asked to abandon.

Ken-Betwa is India’s first inter-basin river link. (Source: Express GFX)

When two rivers meet

The idea of linking India’s rivers dates back to the early 1980s. The National Water Development Agency, set up in 1982 to examine the feasibility of interlinking river basins, identified the Ken-Betwa Link, as a priority project. The project, India’s first inter-basin river link, aims to transfer water from the Ken to the Betwa basin.

A feasibility report followed in 1995, and in August 2005, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and the Centre agreed to prepare a Detailed Project Report. The Union Cabinet finally approved the project in December 2021, transforming the landscape around the rivers into construction sites.

Officials say that once ready, the project will irrigate 9.04 lakh hectares, utilise more than 4,843 million cubic metres of water, generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar energy, and supply nearly 194 million cubic metres of drinking water each year.

The irrigation network will extend across some of the most parched districts of Bundelkhand such as Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh, Panna, Damoh, Vidisha, Sagar, Shivpuri, Datia and Raisen in Madhya Pradesh, and Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Ongoing construction at the site of the Daudhan reservoir, which is proposed to have a gross storage capacity of 2,953 million cubic metres. (Source: Express Photo)

At the heart of the project is the Daudhan dam planned across the Ken river in Madhya Pradesh — a structure that stretches for more than 2 km. The reservoir of the dam is designed to hold 2,853 million cubic metres of water, while two proposed power stations at the site are expected to generate more than 219 million units of electricity annually.

Water from the Daudhan reservoir will flow through a 218.6-km link canal (which gives the Ken-Betwa Link project its name) into the Betwa basin. The network also includes other irrigational structures such as the Lower Orr Project, the Kotha Barrage, the Bina Complex Multipurpose Project across Sagar and Raisen districts and the restored Ken Canal System in Uttar Pradesh.

Construction gathered pace in April 2025. By February 2026, officials said most of the machinery was in place, river diversion works were underway, and excavation of the Daudhan dam’s foundation was in progress.

Beneath the appearance of steady progress is a parallel story — of environmental, administrative and engineering challenges.

Officials say additional private land is still needed to widen the approach roads to the dam. Acquisition proceedings covering nearly 28 hectares are underway, with notifications issued in some cases and records still being processed in others. Water pipelines, electricity lines and government structures within the project’s right of way also remain incomplete, said a project engineer.

But the biggest set of unresolved tasks concerns rehabilitation. Villages within the submergence zone must be evacuated before construction can proceed in full.

Water from the Daudhan reservoir will flow through a 218.6-km link canal (which gives the Ken-Betwa Link project its name) into the Betwa basin. (Source: Express Photo)

Official project documents estimate that construction of the Daudhan dam will directly submerge about 2,171 hectares of village land, while the wider submergence area spans roughly 9,000 hectares.

The project’s resettlement and rehabilitation plan identifies 1,913 affected families across 10 villages, with an estimated population of 8,339. The region has a significant tribal presence: Scheduled Tribes account for 33.9% of residents.

But the biggest headache for the state government is the Environmental Clearance stipulation by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change which mandates that all “rehabilitation and resettlement issues be completed before commissioning of the project”.

Those left behind

The paperwork suggests rehabilitation is nearing completion, but Daudhan village — a 20-minute ride from the dam site through unmotorable roads cutting through the forest — suggests otherwise.

Houses stand ripped open, roofs pulled down, walls sliced in half by excavators. Entire lanes end in mounds of rubble, twisted steel and broken timber. On May 13, 2026, the administration brought in bulldozers. While officials say they only pulled down homes of those who had relocated, as well as vacant structures on government land, villagers allege the demolition was carried out without adequate warning.

For two weeks, a few hundred villagers from Daudhan, Palkhua and Sukwaha, the three villages in the submergence zone of the dam, sat on a protest by the banks of the Ken, in Kupi village, alleging irregularities in land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation for families affected by the project. On July 19, police detained their leader, social activist Amit Bhatnagar and several other demonstrators from the site, effectively ending the protest for now.

For two weeks, a few hundred villagers from Daudhan, Palkhua and Sukwaha, the three villages in the submergence zone of the dam, sat on a protest by the banks of the Ken. (Source: Express Photo)

In September 2023, the Madhya Pradesh government had announced a special rehabilitation package for families affected by the Daudhan dam, under which every adult in a family is entitled to Rs 12.5 lakh, with a couple counted as a single unit. Compensation for homes range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh. In addition to this, they are given plots in Kawar Karondiya, a notified resettlement colony 25-30 km by road from Daudhan, where they can build new homes.

Yet, amid the rubble in Daudhan, dozens of families remain, many insisting they were left out of surveys, denied compensation or never recognised as separate households.

Nandkishore Adivasi spends most afternoons squatting on the floor of his mud house in Daudhan, grinding red chillies into chutney on a stone slab. The house has stood here for generations. His family has already moved to the resettlement colony in Karondiya, but he stayed behind because the house was never counted during the survey and his mother was not counted. “I want to leave; my house does not have electricity, water or even a proper toilet. But not until my mother receives her compensation,” he says.

A few lanes away, Phool Chand was counted, but his daughter was not. “My house has also not been counted. The local patwari (land record official) made a mess of the survey. My elder daughter was not counted. The school in the village has been shut for months now, and my younger daughter is at home,” he says.

Mannu Yadav, widowed decades ago when her husband drowned in the Ken, clutches her Aadhaar card as she speaks. In the absence of any other document, it is the only one with which she can argue that she exists in a place where, according to the survey records, she does not. “The government does not recognise me, they didn’t count me. I am fighting to change that,” she says.

Across Daudhan, where an estimated 100-150 people still remain, the same administrative gaps recur with minor variations: a house omitted from the survey, a missing name, an excluded family member, an undercounted parcel of land.

Chhatarpur Collector Parth Jaiswal says the district has already shifted about 380 families from Daudhan in the first phase and subsequently extended rehabilitation benefits to another 100 families. “We have disbursed around Rs 750 crore in compensation. If there are people left behind, I will ensure as many surveys as possible,” he said.

Official reports show the rehabilitation exercise has advanced well: in Chhatarpur, nearly 89% of land compensation, almost 96% of asset compensation and more than 96% of rehabilitation payments have been disbursed. Across neighbouring Panna, close to 90% of land compensation and almost all rehabilitation payments have been released.

“Once the river diversion begins, the remaining houses cannot stay in the submergence area. We have to complete the evacuation before that stage,” says Jaiswal.

Jaiswal said only about 30 to 35 cases remain unresolved in Daudhan village, but they are also the most complicated. “These are not simple cases… Most involve disputes over eligibility or documentation.”

The struggle to get counted

What a family loses by leaving Daudhan extends far beyond what any compensation schedule can capture. Those living in the forests around Panna collect seasonal produce, and walk familiar paths with landmarks that existed only because generations before them had learnt where water lingered, where wildlife moved and where crops could survive another uncertain monsoon.

A good mahua season could pay for a wedding, school fees or an old debt. The tendu harvest brought weeks of work, while amla, honey and fuelwood sustained families through the year. Even those who migrated to construction sites in Delhi or Gurgaon often returned for the mahua bloom and the tendu harvest.

For those living in the Daudhan dam’s shadow, it’s a struggle of proving, through Aadhaar cards and family registers, among other documents, that they belong to the places they are being asked to vacate. (Source: Express Photo)

What the patwari’s compensation register does record — land, houses, standing crops and recognised family units — has, in the final months before these villages disappear, acquired extraordinary importance. For generations, land anchored a family’s identity and inheritance. Today, that role increasingly belongs to the plastic folder carrying Aadhaar cards, school certificates, voter identity cards, revenue records and handwritten family registers, shuttled from one government office to another in the hope of proving who the state recognises.

Collector Jaiswal rejects allegations that the rehabilitation survey was flawed. “Every house was photographed, every family documented. People were informed repeatedly through gram sabhas,” he says.

Sukwaha sits deep inside the forest, reached by an uneven track that is still not fully motorable, making this a 70-km commute from Daudhan dam.

The village is small, with its mud houses — many of them now partially razed, like in Daudhan and Palkhua — scattered between patches of cultivation and trees.

Krishna Adivasi struggles to describe his loss in monetary terms because much of what sustained his family was never recognised as an asset in the first place. “They took our forest, our river and our mahua,” he says.

His family of eight received a mere Rs 12 lakh; he says he won’t move out until he gets what he is entitled to. Today, several of his family members travel to Chhatarpur for daily-wage work. “Everything has changed. My children dropped out of school,” he says.

Vidya Rani once owned three houses and farmland in Sukwaha. Only her husband received Rs 12 lakh in compensation. “If we want to buy new fertile land, the rates are up to Rs 10-20 lakh. We can never buy back what we lost,” she says. Her school-age children work as farm labourers in villages. “We don’t want more money. We just want enough land to survive.”

Daudhan village is one of the 10 villages where the project’s Resettlement and Rehabilitation Plan identifies 1,913 affected families. (Source: Express Photo)

Santosh Adivasi has become an unlikely broker in Palkhua village, 10 km from the dam site. A property dealer, he sits with a cloth bag full of cash, counting bundles of notes into the hands of villagers as they sell whatever private land lies outside the project’s acquisition boundary. For many, these sales are the only way to bridge the gap between the compensation received and the cost of starting over elsewhere. Most plots, he says, fetch between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.

Kalu Adivasi spent years working on construction sites in Delhi before returning to Palkhua when the work dried up. He had bought a parcel of land to set up a store near his village for Rs 3 lakh. He was forced to sell it for Rs 2.5 lakh. “The administration warned us to find new land, otherwise my shop will be demolished after the monsoons. So we have to sell our precious land…it’s heartbreaking,” he said.

A new beginning

At the resettlement colony in Kawar Karondiya, in Chhatarpur district, fresh brick houses stand beside half-finished ones. Courtyards are filled not with cattle or kitchens, but stacks of bricks, steel rods and cement bags waiting for the next stage of construction. There is no water supply and the resettled villagers shell out Rs 500 for 5,000-litre water tankers.

Tribals and farmers protest in Madhya Pradesh on July 18, 2026. (Source: PTI)

Ram Swarup says he has spent nearly half his compensation money on building two modest houses. His 17-year-old son has dropped out of school to work as a labourer. Around him, neighbours constantly weigh the price of bricks, cement, iron and sand against the compensation they received.

Dasharath Adivasi from Daudhan, who now runs a small shop selling chips, chewing gum and ice lollies in Karondiya, says he earns Rs 300-400 a day. Back in the village, there were days when he made Rs 5,000 a day. “Half the village hasn’t shifted here yet. Without people, there is no business,” he says.

People stage a ‘Jal Satyagraha’ against the Ken-Betwa Link Project. (Source: PTI)

Durji Adivasi walks nearly a kilometre every morning to the colony’s only hand pump. Filling two buckets can take up to 40 minutes before she carries them home. The family cannot afford tanker water, she says, and the nearest ration shop is about six kilometres away.

But she is gradually discovering a new life. “In Daudhan, our house didn’t even have electricity,” she says, sitting under a lone, white bulb. “Also, I now have a radio. I have been listening to songs”.