Dispatch Times
October 17, 2015
Located in the Gyaca County, Shannan Prefecture, the Zam Hydropower Station also known as Zangmu Hydropower Station, harnesses the rich water resources of Brahmaputra known in Tibet as Yarlung Zangbo River, a major river which flows through Tibet into India and later into Bangladesh.
While the first unit began operations in November 2014 itself, the present initiative connected the remaining five units to the power grid. In short, the argument is that since the water available to upper streams in Tibet is scanty, building of hydropower stations in the region by China would not much affect the flow of the river in India.
China on Tuesday operationalised its Dollars 1.5 billion Zam Hydropower Station, the largest in Tibet, built on the Brahmaputra river.
The sharing of river waters has been discussed by the two countries, with Beijing maintaining that it has no intention of obstructing flows into India. While China, India fears that the conflict could leave the water from these dams in India would be at serious risk of flooding. “The central Tibet is also an important energy base”. When electricity is ample in summer, part of it will be transferred to neighboring Qinghai province, it said. Gogoi said Assam government has all along urged the Centre to intervene in China’s plans to build dams on Brahmaputra, and claimed that he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the matter with the Chinese President during the former’s last visit to China. Earlier, too, the chief minister had repeatedly asked New Delhi to raise with China the topic of its Brahmaputradam projects having an adverse impact on the northeast. Besides, it is a “run-of-the-river” project – meaning it uses the flow of the river, rather than storing water in a large reservoir – and hence not going to cause any radical change in the flow of the river downstream. The group noted that the three Jiasu Dam, Jangmu and Jiacha 25 km radius of each other and are within 550 km from the Indian border.
India is concerned that if the waters are diverted, then projects on the Brahmaputra, particularly the Upper Siang and Lower Suhansri projects in Arunachal Pradesh, may get affected.
