In what can be seen as a major infrastructural push in the Himalayan topography, China has given a go-ahead to the construction of the world’s largest dam, dubbed the planet’s biggest infra project, on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border. The project, slated to cost USD 137 billion, is expected to raise concerns in riparian states: India and Bangladesh.
According to an official statement quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday, the Chinese government has approved the construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra. The dam will be constructed at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.
Impact on India
The announcement is likely to raise concerns in the neighbourhood as the dam will allow China to control the water flow as well as enable Beijing to release large amounts of water flooding border areas in times of hostilities, given the size and scale of the river. Notably, India is also building a dam over Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh.
In 2006, India and China established the Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) aimed at discussing various issues related to trans-border rivers under which China provides India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra river and Sutlej river during the flood seasons.
How much will the project cost?
The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan (USD 137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet including China’s own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
China has already Operationalised the USD 1.5 billion Zam Hydropower Station, the largest in Tibet in 2015.
The Brahmaputra dam was part of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 adopted by Plenum, a key policy body of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2020.
(With agency inputs)
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