India to check if China is building Brahmaputra dam

16 Oct 2009,
IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: While increasingly distrustful of China's intentions, the government here on Thursday refrained from questioning Beijing's denial that it was engaged in constructing a dam on Brahmaputra which could impact ecology in the northeastern states.

Reacting to a fresh report questioning China's denial, the MEA here said, "India and China agreed in November 2006 to establish an Expert Level Mechanism to discuss trans-border river issues in an institutional way. Three meetings have been held so far.... The Chinese side has categorically denied that there is a plan to build any such large scale diversion project on the Brahmaputra river."

However, it said the government would "ascertain whether there are recent developments that suggest any change in the position conveyed to us by the government of China".

The fact about China building dams on the Brahmaputra to divert water to its parched northeast regions was first highlighted by TOI. In November 2006, India and China set up an experts committee on transborder rivers.

China has continued to deny that it was building dams on Brahmaputra which would result in diversion of waters crucial for India's northeast. Yet, exactly a year ago, PM Manmohan Singh, meeting Chinese president Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the ASEM summit in Beijing, devoted most of his conversation to the question of Brahmaputra and Chinese actions on it. Talking to journalists afterwards, the PM confirmed that this was his focus during the conversation.

There are indications that China may have put the plan in high gear. In April 2009, China's Gezhouba Corporation, one of the country's biggest engineering and construction companies, won a 1.14 billion yuan bid for the hydropower plant in Zangmu, in the middle of the Brahmaputra river.

The company's website said it would be responsible for "designing, constructing and running the project that supplies 3.4-million cu m of concrete and 8-million-ton aggregate for the water power station. The project is expected to last until the end of December 2015."

Zangmu is only the first dam to be built. China plans to build four more dams at Jiacha, Zongda, Lengda, Jiexu and Langzhen.

The Chinese are also building another hydropower project with large-scale dams in Tibet, which has already seen tens of thousands of Tibetans protesting againsyt the building of hydro projects on the Brahmaputra.

It needed the Chinese Public Security Bureau and Peoples Armed Police to fire at the crowd, killing six women. China has already dammed the Mekong rover and the resulting siltation has created a huge problem for lower riparian states in Thailand, Cambodia, etc.