Review Nepal
DHAKA, NOV 25 : Asia-Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalists (APFEJ) has emphasized on a water sharing agreement among three countries namely China, India and Bangladesh in reference to the use of Brahmaputra river water.
Responding to the news about Zangmu dam’s recent commencement of operation over Brahmaputra in Tibet region, the environmental journalists™ forum, whose headquartered is in Dhaka, urged the China government in Beijing for providing detail information about the project to New Delhi and Dhaka.
Media reports from Beijing narrated that China has already started operating a hydroelectric dam over the mighty Brahmaputra River inside Tibet autonomous region, which is adjacent to India’s Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
The construction work of Zangmu dam over Yarlung Tsangpo (or Zangbo in Chinese) started in 2010. The dam has understandably no plan to divert river towards the northern side of Himalayan hills for irrigation purposes.
According to China’s official news agency Xinhua, the Zangmu dam is the first segment of a bigger project which started operating on Sunday afternoon and the rest five sections would be completed by 2015.
The scientists describe that the Brahmaputra river basin as the largest river basin of India and it covers an area of over 5, 80,000 square kilometer. The mighty river, which originates at Mansarowar of Tibet, enters Arunachal Pradesh and Assam (India) and finallyculminates in the Bay of Bengal after crossing northern Bangladesh.
The 2,900 kilometer (1,800 mile) river is the life line of millions of people across the region. “As India and Bangladesh are the lower riparian countries to China they have the right to get all relevant information about any intervention over the river (Brahmaputra).
Till we have a water sharing agreement, the government in Beijing should take the initiative to feed their counterparts in New Delhi and Dhaka with authentic information,†said Quamrul Chowdhury, the chairman of APFEJ, in a statement issued to the media.
