About the Ken
The Ken River flows through Panna National Park — one of India's most dramatic national park landscapes where the river cuts a spectacular gorge through white Vindhyan limestone, creating a canyon-like corridor of tiger and vulture habitat. Panna's tiger story is one of conservation's most remarkable comebacks — the park lost its entire tiger population to poaching by 2009, yet by 2024 had recovered a healthy breeding population through reintroduction from Kanha and Pench. The Ken's clean, fast-flowing water is excellent gharial habitat.
The Ken-Betwa River Link Project — India's first approved river-linking scheme — proposes to divert water from the Ken in Panna Tiger Reserve to the water-scarce Betwa basin. The project has been deeply controversial: the diversion infrastructure will submerge large areas of Panna Tiger Reserve's buffer zone and significantly reduce the river flow that gharials, tigers, and vultures depend on. India's Supreme Court, the National Tiger Conservation Authority, and multiple environmental bodies have weighed in, making this the country's most scrutinised river development project.
Simri · Urmal · Bewas