(TibetanReview.net, Jul20’24) – A state lawmaker of Arunachal Pradesh has on Jul 19 warned New Delhi that China’s ongoing building of a mega dam in neighbouring occupied Tibet’s border area of Metog posed grave potential hydrological threats to India. The river could be diverted and the flow of its volume machinated to cause floods in India, Ninong Ering, a BJP MLA and a former union minister, has said.
Yarlung Tsangpo is known as Siang after it enters Arunachal Pradesh and Brahmaputra in the neighbouring state of Assam. The main channel of this river is the Jamuna, which flows through Bangladesh before joining the Bay of Bengal, noted the economicgtimes.com Jul 20.
Participating in the motion of thanks to the governor’s address in the state assembly, Ering, a former union minister of state for minority affairs, has said, “We cannot trust our ‘neighbour’. You never know what they can do. They can either divert the entire river flow drying up our Siang or release water at once causing unprecedented floods havoc downstream.”
He has added that the construction of the 60,000-megawatt dam could also affect the other downstream country Bangladesh.
The MLA from Pasighat West assembly constituency has expressed support for India’s construction of dams with storage capacity to check floods in the region and noted that there is no water treaty between India and China so far.
Pointing out that “hydropower is Arunachal Pradesh’s only resource,” Ering has called for those opposing the construction of dams in state to be consulted beforehand so that the interest of the affected people could be taken care of.
Earlier, the state’s Chief Minister, Mr Pema Khandu, had in September stated that New Delhi had proposed to construct a large barrage on the Siang river to keep the area secure in view of the potential threat from the huge dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river being built by China in occupied Tibet.
“In case of release of excessive water, we need to have big structures to protect ourselves from floods. The Centre, too, has expressed concern about the position of the Siang river once the Chinese project is completed. We have to keep Siang alive. If there is diversion of water by China, massive land erosion will take place,” Khandu had said.
Reuters reported earlier this month, on Jul 9, that India was planning to spend $1 billion to expedite the construction of 12 hydropower stations in the state.
China responded the next day by claiming India’s development activities in the area were “illegal and invalid”. It calls the state ‘Zangnan’ (South Tibet) on the basis of its baseless claim of sovereignty over occupied Tibet. The state is the birthplace of Tibet’s 6th Dalai Lama.
The current territory of Arunachal Pradesh was delineated as part of India in a 1914 convention at Shimla involving representatives of British India, Nationalist China and Tibet. Communist China rejects this convention, while India has recognized Tibet as an autonomous region of China since 1954.