Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi has written to Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar, asking him not to implement the Ken-Betwa river linking project, citing concerns of a threat to the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

The Congress President noted that the Panna Tiger Reserve had been revived with great difficulty and is now considered an example of translocation and successful breeding.

The river-linking project now threatens the tiger reserve, and the state government's estimate is that around 40% of the area of the tiger reserve will be irretrievably damaged, Gandhi stated in her letter, pointing that around 18 lakh trees would be removed from the submergence area.

Last month, the Minister of Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat signed a tripartite agreement with Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on the occasion of World Water Day to start the work on India's first major river interlinking project that will connect the Ken and the Betwa Rivers.

The memorandum of agreement (MoA) was signed almost 18 years after the project's idea was conceived due to disagreement between the two states over sharing of water.

A 73.8 m high dam proposed on Ken at Daudhan in Madhya Pradesh's Chhatarpur district. Both of the rivers are rain-fed and flow into the Yamuna. The project, which is estimated to take eight years to complete, has an estimated cost of Rs 35,111.24 crore.

The project was conceptualised in the 1980s, but the water-sharing agreement could not be reached between the two states. The work on the project was originally slated to begin in 2015 but only got a fresh push last year with the government making a revised deal with the two states.

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Also read: Ken-Betwa interlinking dam to wait longer