China makes it official, says we are damming the Brahmaputra-it is building a massive hydel power project on the Brahmaputra before the river enters I

China makes it official, says we are damming the Brahmaputra



China has finally acknowledged that it is building a massive hydel power project on the Brahmaputra before the river enters India. The first of six power generating units of the 510 MW Zangmu hydel project will be commissioned by 2014.

China’s state news agency Xinhua reported today that the “formal start of construction” happened on November 12. The Indian Express reported Chinese plans to dam the Brahmaputra, along with satellite images of the site, over a year ago, in October 2009. Given the strategic implications of the project, a committee of secretaries headed by the Cabinet Secretary has been monitoring developments on the site using satellite images and other techniques.

Beijing has assured New Delhi at the highest levels that the project is ‘run-of-the-river’, which would have no impact downstream — a line it repeated today after Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao raised the issue during the strategic dialogue.

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Indian officials and experts, however, continue to be apprehensive about the project. The Chinese People’s Daily has reported that the dam’s “main function is power generation, but it can also be used for flood control and irrigation” — which, experts said, would require the diversion and storage of water.

“While power generation could either be a storage project or a run-of-the-river project, the flood control feature requires storage structures. And the irrigation feature would mean water would be diverted. These features are of concern to India,” said a senior official of the Ministry of Water Resources.

Xinhua though, quoted Li Chaoyi, chief engineer of the China Huaneng Group, the project’s main contractor, as saying, “The river will not be stopped during construction... After it becomes operational, the river water will flow downstream through water turbines and sluices. So the water volume downstream will not be cut.” The project, which is located 325 km from Lhasa, is estimated to have an average annual capacity of 2.5 billion KWH. Xinhua said the project, each of whose six units would have an installed capacity of generating 85 MW, will require an investment of about 7.9 billion yuan. China has been drawing parallels between Zangmu and India’s Baglihar, a run-of-the-river project on the Chenab before it flows into Pakistan.

However, while the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty remains the guiding principle for the sharing of river waters between India and Pakistan, no such treaty exists with China, and Beijing continues to be reluctant to enter into one.