In 2017, the Trivendra Singh Rawat-led government of Uttarakhand commenced its ambitious project to build a railway line connecting 12 stations from Rishikesh to Karnaprayag. Land acquisition for the 125-kilometre-long Rishikesh-Karnaprayag railway line began soon after. For this, no objection certificates were obtained from Women’s Hospital, Kathod village, Srinagar; Degree College, also from Kathod village, Srinagar; Degree College, Old Srinagar; GNTI, Old Srinagar; and Polytechnic, Bhalgaon, Srinagar.

High-tension wires of Power Transmission Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited were being shifted, and notices were issued to the landholders to acquire their lands. The officials completed the public hearing under the chairmanship of Mukta Mishra, the district magistrate at Dham Sumerpur village for the land acquisition in Punad, Tilani, Sumerpur and Ratura villages of Rudraprayag block.

But people started a protest in Dungaripanth village, just 12 kilometres from Srinagar, demanding that the compensation should be paid before the start of the project, along with an assured job. Five villages in Chamoli district, 12 in Pauri and 10 in Rudraprayag will be affected as massive tunnelling and relentless blasting will destroy agricultural fields and water sources and are likely to cause cracks in houses.

About 300 homes are on the periphery of the proposed railway line. In 2018, the land acquisition process was in its last phase in which 48 homes from seven villages in Tehri district were asked to shift. Overall, 45 villages, with a total of 1,168 families, in Tehri, Pauri, Rudraprayag and Chamoli districts will be relocated.

On October 10, 2019, the chief minister took a review meeting on the progress of the railway line and instructed officials to prioritise the compensation work. Despite this, some villages have still not received compensation. The residents of Narkota village met the district magistrate and submitted a memorandum in July 2020 demanding compensation. The families claim that notices of demolition have been served but compensation has not been provided for it.

As of January 2021, the construction contract of the project is said to have been awarded to Larsen & Toubro.

Earlier, the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which is tasked with construction of the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag line, had determined a total compensation amount of Rs 496 crore for affected landowners, of which Rs 229 crore was sanctioned for Tehri, Rs 148 crore for Chamoli, Rs 93 crore for Rudraprayag, and Rs 26 crore for Pauri. However, in February 2021, the Land Acquisition Tribunal directed RVNL to also compensate the artisans, the tenants and the labourers, working in the affected areas for three years prior to the acquisition, who were impacted due to the project.

In August 2022, residents of affected villages in Pauri Gahwal flagged the development of cracks in their houses due to the use of explosives to blast rocks to dug tunnels for the railway project. The residents of Sweeth in Pauri Garhwal also alleged that over 100 houses in Sweeth and houses in Dhamak Narkota and Dobripanth have developed cracks while landslides have also increased.

In December 2021, a committee headed by the Pauri Garhwal District Magistrate identified 224 affected families, developed a compensatory package of Rs 1.5 crore, and forwarded it to RVNL. According to a report by _The Northern Gazette, _RVNL officials refused to pay the compensation citing a lack of scientific study to determine if the cracks were due to the railway tunnel construction work.

Since then, the incidences of houses being damaged along the rail route has spread, and some stretches of the work has been halted due to protests. In Maroda, near Karnaprayag, the District Magistrate directed RVNL to compensate villagers for the subsidence-related damage. A notice posted in November at the village authority's office stated that RVNL was purchasing an additional 1,387 hectares of land from villagers because of subsidence, at a cost of almost Rs 30 crore.

A report by The Times of India stated that the RVNL, having admitted that the cracks were due to blasting and tunnelling for the under-construction railway line, paid Rs 20 crore compensation to 60 families here.

In Chamoli district, villagers alleged that their spring dried up due to the rail project. The panchayat informed the district administration, RVNL, the SDM and the tunnel contractor, but have not received any response so far.

In March 2023, Vinod Bisht, the liason officer with RVNL confirmed that they have received about 1,000 complaints about damages to people’s houses due to the construction.

Amid reports of damages to houses, the government had tasked the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) with investigating cracks along the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail project in Tehri, Pauri Garhwal, Rudraprayag, and Chamoli districts. Until April 2023, it had completed its probe of Tehri and Pauri Garhwal districts and was still working on Chamoli and Rudraprayag.

Until April 2023, RVNL had reportedly paid nearly Rs 911 crore as compensation for land acquisition and damage to houses.