GUWAHATI, Oct 16: Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said the State Government is worried over the reported Chinese dam project on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra.
Talking to reporters here today, Gogoi said: “We were apprehensive of such a move earlier, which has now come true. Building up of huge dams on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra will affect Assam and other States of the Northeast. Very soon I will go to New Delhi, talk to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, and request them to take up the matter with their Chinese counterparts.”
Gogoi further said: “We will form an expert committee to study the would-be impact on Assam and other northeastern States in the event of China going ahead with the reported dam project on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra.”
India on Thursday said that it would be determining if China was building a huge dam on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra in its territory. In response to a media report, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said that the Indian Government would be examining if there had been any change in the Chinese position. The spokesperson said that at earlier meetings of Sino-Indian experts on trans-border river issues, “the Chinese side had categorically denied that there was a plan to build any such large-scale diversion project on the Brahmaputra river”. But, the spokesperson said, in view of fresh reports India will be asking China if it is building any major project “as such a project may have a significant impact on the socio-economic condition of people living downstream”.
The Brahmaputra traverses 1,625 km inside China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, with the Indian part being only 918 km long. THE SENTINEL
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