GUWAHATI, Dec 8 - The Government of India should take note of China�s attempts to block and divert the Brahmaputra and raise the issue when the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits India later this month.
The Chief Ministers of Northeastern States should also put pressure on the Union Government to highlight the concerns on the international fora before this region suffers from the huge consequences emerging from the massive projects.
This was the view of Jana Jagriti, a non-government organisation that has come up with the demands after acquiring detailed information about ongoing Chinese intervention on and around the river.
Today, at a press conference, the president of Jana Jagriti, Ashokananda Singhal, said that the information acquired so far points to large scale projects with serious implications not just for the Northeast region but for the entire country.
�Previously the Brahmaputra used to provide as much as 78.1 billion cubic metres of water in monsoon and 56.12 billion cubic metres in the non-monsoon period. Today that amount is reduced by 60 percent during non-monsoon days and 30 per cent during monsoon period,� he said.
Singhal wondered what the condition of the river would be when all the Chinese dams and storage facilities became functional in the near future. �It is not a development that anyone can ignore, the magnitude is such that it has become a national issue,� he remarked.
With the aid of satellite imagery generated in 2010, Singhal pointed out that China has already built two major reservoirs of 42 million cubic metres and 31 million cubic metres about 60-70 km from Gogrin village in Arunachal Pradesh. Four tunnels are also under construction which will be used to generate a total of 45,000 MW of electricity.
Negating some views that China was intent on diverting water of the Brahmaputra near this point of the river, he said that the existence of four huge tunnels implied that it was instead an ambitious power project. In support of his observation, he presented satellite based imagery along with the relevant coordinates where the project was being executed.
Referring to aerial images he claimed that the Chinese government was building a cantonment to maintain a division of the People�s Liberation Army for the security of the project at Nyingehi, 16 kilometres from the Brahmaputra�s Great Bend. A new rail system and a national highway to that region has been constructed that will be used to maintain the hydro project.
Other significant developments, he said, were taking place on stretches of the river in Tibet. Relying on satellite imagery, it emerges that plans are already being implemented to construct 11 mega water storage facilities, two canals and five dams, parts of a large scale drainage system that would help carry water to perennially drought affected regions in Northwest China.
