Dharamsala, August 12: India is negotiating with the international community over China’s plans to construct a dam across the Brahmaputra in Tibet, IANS report said, citing Arunachal Pradesh Power Minister Jabron Gamlin as saying on Wednesday.
The 2,906-km-long Brahmaputra is one of Asia’s longest rivers that traverses its first stretch of 1,625 km in Tibet, the next 918 km in India and the remaining 363 km in Bangladesh before flowing into the Bay of Bengal.
From its origin in southwestern Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Brahmaputra flows across southern Tibet to break through the Himalayas in great gorges, before flowing into the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
“The Indian government is taking up the matter with the international community and also with the Chinese government to guarantee that the dam does not affect the river’s flow downstream (into India),” Gamlin said.
“China’s constructing a dam is a cause of concern for us, but we are not certain how big this dam is and what affect it would have on people living downstream,” the power minister said on the sidelines of the two-day North East Power Minister’s meet in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya state in north-east India.
China plans to build a $167 million hydropower plant in Zangmu, 140 km southeast of Tibet’s capital Lhasa, besides diverting water to its parched northwest and northeast territories, which includes the Gobi desert.
China’s plan to build the dam over the river and diverting water into its arid provinces has been opposed by regional governments in India’s northeast.
If the controversial project is commissioned it would almost certainly have devastating consequences on the lives of millions of people living in India and Bangladesh, the report cited experts as saying.
According to an agricultural scientist, agriculture forms the backbone of the economy in both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with nearly 80 percent of the 27 million people in the two states eking out a living through farming.
Observers say China is not sharing much information about the dam, and that has left India worried.
Besides, China is reportedly planning to divert 200 billion cubic metres of water to feed the Yellow River in an attempt to ease the acute water shortage in Shaanxi, Hebel, Beijing and Tianjin. Reports say the ‘South-to-North Water Diversion’ project is currently being debated in Beijing for its technical feasibility.
India and China do not have a water-sharing agreement. Until recently, water sharing was never on the agenda of bilateral talks between the two countries.
