Events & Issues

New Delhi, 3 January 2011

Chinese Dam In Tibet

GRAVE FOR INDIA AND BANGLADESH 

BY Col. (DR.) P. K. VASUDEVA (Retd)

China has made plans to achieve leap-frog development and lasting stability in the Tibet Autonomous Region in a bid to ensure the country’s development as a whole. This was the outcome of a high level meeting at Beijing in January last year.

The Chinese President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders attending the fifth meeting on the work of Tibet agreed that more efforts must be made to greatly improve living standards of the Tibetan people along-with ushering in ethnic unity and stability. Attaching great importance to Tibet, President Jintao asserted that it was a pressing task in carrying out the scientific outlook on development, building a well-off society, establishing a national ecological protective screen and realizing sustainable development. Senior leaders also mooted plans to develop the Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai during the meeting.

Importantly, notwithstanding this meeting and Chinese claims over Arunachal Pradesh, reports now state that China has started constructing a huge dam on its side of the Brahmaputra River, called Tsangpo River in Tibet. The dam is reportedly being constructed at Namcha Barwa on Tibet’s eastern plateau.

Touted as the world's largest dam costing 1.138 bn Yuan, with 26 turbines, it is expected to generate 40 million kilowatts per hour of hydro-electricity, twice the output of the famous Three Gorges Dam over the Yangtze. A consortium of five top Chinese power companies is overseeing the project. In fact, evidence suggests that the Zangmu hydro-electrical project was inaugurated in March 2009 and the first concrete was poured on April 2 the same year.

There is no gainsaying, that this unpleasant development has irked New Delhi. Coming as it does after India had expressed its grave concern over reports of a dam being built by China in 2006, which Beijing categorically denied. Stating the proposal was "unnecessary, unfeasible and unscientific," and had no Government backing, its Water Resources Minister made plain that China had no plans to divert the Brahmaputra which flows from Tibet into India.

Undoubtedly, the Brahmaputra is very important for India and Bangladesh. Indeed, the river’s basin with its fabulous water wealth accounts for nearly 30% of India’s total water resources and about 40% of the country’s total hydro-power potential. Today, however, to quell New Delhi’s fears, Chinese engineers have reportedly suggested that the dam could provide cheap electricity for India, Nepal and Bangladesh, and could facilitate flood control in the Brahmaputra-Ganges basin.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. On two scores. One, the diverted water from the river would irrigate the north-western part of China's Gobi desert in Xinjiang and Gansu and refill the dying Yellow River now dry for much of the year. Two, as a result lower riparian countries like India and Bangladesh would be at China’s mercy during the dry spell and for protection from floods during the rainy season.

Significantly, several organizations in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have voiced grave concern about the construction of the dam as it would jeopardize the flow of the Brahmaputra, the lifeline of the Assam valley. Experts too have raised fears that the dam construction might trigger devastating flood in Assam during the rainy season and dry up the river in winter.

Further, the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) recently confirmed that construction was in full swing at Zangmu on the Chinese side of the Brahmaputra River, prompting New Delhi to take up the matter with Beijing at the “political” level. In its presentation to the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) formed to assess Chinese plans regarding possible diversion of the Brahmaputra’s water, the NRSA presented evidence of “houses, construction/excavation, and movement of trucks” in and around a 3-4 km range at the site.

Accordingly, the CoS, headed by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, decided that the issue was far too significant to be handled by the expert-level mechanism on floodwater data sharing. Instead, it asked the External Affairs Ministry to tackle the issue at the political level. This meeting also attended by the then RAW Chief Verma, representatives of the Environment, Water and  Power Ministries decided to “constantly monitor” various aspects of the construction through different sub-groups set-up by the CoS.

Recall, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had first raised India’s concerns about this project when he met Chinese President Hu Jintao in New Delhi last year. He also took up the matter with the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Thailand and again during Wen’s visit to New Delhi last month. But he failed to get a positive response.

However, China has assured India that it will not begin work on any diversion project without first notifying New Delhi through the joint working group mechanism the two countries have set up to discuss water-sharing issues.

Needless to say, the dependability of the Chinese on such issues is doubtful. Hence, India and Bangladesh must jointly take up this issue with the Chinese Government to safeguard the interest of their respective countries before it is too late. If the results of the negotiations are not fruitful which is likely, the issue must be raised at the UN Security Council as the lives of millions of people in India and Bangladesh would be endangered once the dam is completed. ---- INFA

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