Himanshu Thakkar leading water activist of India and coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People (SANDRP) has pointed out an erroneous reporting by the Indian Express on the Ken Betwa link, the first link of the river interlinking project now under implementation in India. In a posting to SANDRP and the waterwatch Yahoo group he has written as under:THIS IS SUCH A FACTUALLY WRONG STATEMENT, ONE DOES NOT EXPECT THIS FROM INDIAN EXPRESS: “After a lot of difficulty, the Ken-Betwa link project received environmental, forest and wildlife clearances earlier this year, but now Madhya Pradesh state government has raised some objections, bringing a fresh cloud of uncertainty over the project.”
Fact of the matter is that the Ken Betwa LInk does not have Environment Clearance, It does not have final forest clearance and its wildlife clearance is under scrutiny by CEC, to be followed by Supreme Court Scrutiny. Even the recommendation of the Env clearance is sort of invalid since the Forest and Wildlife committees have put condition that the power component be taken out of forest/ wildlife area, among many other conditions. All this will need fresh appraisal… when I called and told the reporter about this over four hrs ago, he agreed that this needs change.. still awaiting the change, in online version.. I also suggested that to correct the misleading impression such reports carry (there was also an earlier report by the same reporter giving the same misleading impression), a fresh corrected report is necessary. Let us see if it happens.
See report here: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ken-betwa-experts-unsure-but-mps-see-river-linking-as-the-solution-to-flood-control-4770472/
