China defends plan to build dam over Brahmaputra River

Beijing, PTI: China on Friday defended its plan to build the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet saying that the project will not affect riparian states and safety issues have been addressed through decades of studies. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning played down apprehensions over the massive project estimated to cost around USD 137 billion being built in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur frequently. She said China has carried out in-depth studies for decades and taken safeguard measures.

China has always been responsible for the development of cross-border Rivers, Mao told a media briefing here a question on the concerns related to the dam. She said the hydropower development in Tibet has been studied in an in-depth way for decades and safeguard measures have been taken for the security of the project and ecological and environmental protection. The project will not affect lower reaches, she said. China will continue to maintain communication with countries in the lower reaches through existing channels and step up international cooperation on disaster prevention and relief for the benefit of the people by the river, she said.

China on Wednesday approved the construction of the world's largest dam, stated to be the planet's biggest infra project on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border, raising concerns in riparian states - India and Bangladesh. The hydropower project is to be built in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra, an official statement here said. 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. Mao said China's hydropower development in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River aims to speed up the development of clean energy and respond to climate change and extreme hydrological disasters.

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.