China approves world's largest dam over Brahmaputra

Beijing, PTI: China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam, stated to be the planet's biggest infra project costing $137 billion, on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border, raising concerns in riparian states - India and Bangladesh. 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, according to an official statement quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday.

The dam is to be built 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. The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan ($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, South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. China has already Operationalised the $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 CPC in 2020.

Concerns arose in India as the dam besides empowering China to control the water flow, the size and scale of it could enable Beijing to release large amounts of water flooding border areas in times of hostilities. India too is building a dam over Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh. India and China established the ELM in 2006 to discuss 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. Data sharing of transborder rivers figured in the talks between India, China SRs for border question, NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, held here on December 18.