China claims no affect to India from its Dam on Brahmaputra

: Beijing, March 30, 2011

The Government of China has claimed that its planned dam in Tibet on river Tsangpo, or Brahmaputra as known in Assam, would not have any significant impact on the water flow to downstream countries India and Bangladesh. This was stated by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Tuesday during a media briefing while answering  questions of concerns over some of China’s projects on inter-state rivers. The dam under discussion is a 1.2 billion dollar river project project taken by China in Tibet Autonomous Council and there have been various concerns raised by civil organizations, especially in Assam, which had led to the Government of India discussing the project with Chinese authorities in the highest levels, including talks during the recent visit of Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao to New Delhi.

In spite of the Chinese assurances, the concern over the Chinese dam on Brahmaputra is not likely to fade away in Assam and Bangladesh so soon. With the recent strong mass protests held across Assam against mega dam projects in Arunachal Pradesh, it is expected that the Government of India would be demanded to request China for further project specific details of the Brahmaputra Dam in China. Although China has claimed that the project is meant only for electricity generation and not for irrigation or agriculture projects, which would mean a definite diversion of the waters to other provinces of China, there is still a high probability that the stoppage of water flow for power generation itself would disrupt the ecologic balance in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh of India. Further the release of the water after generation of electricity can create round the year flash floods in the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, with huge amount of round the year rainfall accompanying to make matters worse.  It would be worth mentioning here that a similar concern like this is being recently highlighted by Vietnam to China, over a hydro project on the river Mekong which is being feared to cause water shortage problems for the Vietnamese.