“China’s upcoming mega hydropower project a threat”: Tibet Policy Institute

Tibet Policy Institute and Bharatiya Janta Party MP, Tapir Gao from Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday expressed serious concern about China’s upcoming mega hydropower project, terming it a ‘water bomb.’

The upcoming mega hydropower project on the Brahmaputra River near the Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh has become a matter of serious concern for environmentalists.

Dechen Palmo, a researcher at Tibet Policy Institute of the Tibetan government in exile in the North Indian hill town Dharamshala, is conducting a research study on the rivers of Tibet.

Speaking to ANI she said, “During a recent meeting the Chinese government has released a five-year plan where they have come up with this huge dam that will be built on Yarlung Tsangpo ( the Brahmaputra river). They haven’t mentioned how big this dam would be and where this dam will be built so, however, there are many researchers and scientists who say that the dam would be built in the Metok region just before it enters India at the great bank of the Yarlung Tsangpo. So as per the different reports we have seen that it would be of 60-gigawatt hydropower dam and such a big dam built in this region will have a great impact on Tibet as a whole and also on the downstream regions including India and Bangladesh.”

“So there are many research done on how this great dam has impact and since the region itself is seismically very active zone and over the past ten years there were many earthquakes happened in this region also so even if we look back in the 1950s there were very huge earthquakes happened with the magnitude of 8.4 so if such a big dam will be constructed in this region it will have an impact on the ecosystem as a whole,” she added.

Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh, Tapir Gao told ANI, “It’s a great threat not only for Arunachal, not only for India, it is for Bangladesh also so I have raised this issue in parliament, Loksabha that China is making a water bomb, any time they may release huge quantity of water. It will have devastation in Arunachal, Assam and even in Bangladesh so under our leader Modi ji we are also preparing to have a big dam inside Arunachal Pradesh to retain whatever China do in… any kind of atom bomb against this country so we are prepared for that.”