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| Assam CM rings the alarm bells | | Chinese plan to dam giant Brahmaputra river | |
B L KAK
NEW DELHI, OCT. 25: A serious situation is in the making, with uncontradicted reports fed to the government of India by the Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, hinting at the involvement of China in planning to dam the giant Brahmaputra river. And these reports have triggered offical fears of an environmental "disaster" in India.
Gogoi has called for the Centre's intervention. He has informed New Delhi about his government's decision to form an expert committee to study the impact of such a move be Beijing. The Arunachal Pradesh government, too, has sought Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's intervention to persuade Beijing not to go ahead with the plan to dam the Brahmaputra river.
According to experts, damming the Brahmaputra in China would have a cascading effect in India's northeast region and could lead to a natural calamity in Assam. Beijing has been accused in Asam and Arunachal Pradesh of making quiet preparations to build a dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River (the China part of the Brahmaputra) to divert water to the Yellow river. Beijing has denied any plans to dam the river.
This notwithstanding, reports continue to pour in from Guwahati about China's plan China was to divert 200 billion cubic meters (260 billion cubic yards) of water to feed the Yellow River in an attempt at easing acute water shortages.The plan, according to these reports, has the backing of Chinese President, Hu Jintao, a hydro engineer by profession. Responding to Indian media reports, China had recently acknowledged building a dam on the Sutlej river in Zhada county in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
The Brahmaputra waters are a lifeline in Assam and Arunachal, where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, as well as further downstream in Bangladesh. Nearly 80 percent of the 27 million inhabitants of Assam and Arunachal live off agriculture. Asam Chief Minister is of the view that large-scale diversion of water would adversely hit his State's economy and could even lead to environmental problems and affect the surface water table in the northeast.
The 3,000 kilometre (1,800 mile) Brahmaputra is one of Asia’s longest rivers that traverses first Tibet, then India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
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