Dragon threat to Brahmaputra
If China goes ahead with its plans, Assam and B’desh will be at the mercy of China for waters in the Brahmaputra, feels Tarun Gogoi. 

The mighty Brahmaputra, the life-line of Assam is under threat. From the dragon. Communist China is planning to impound Brahmaputra at its very source in Tibet.  Ostensibly, the Chinese are planning a giant power project over the river, which Tibetans endearingly address as Yarlung or Tsangpo. Chief minister Tarun Gogoi is naturally worried. He believes, rightly, that if China goes ahead with its plans, Assam and Bangladesh will be at the mercy of China for waters in the Brahmaputra, by the year 2009 the target date for completion of the Chinese Tibet project.  He has sounded New Delhi with a request to take up the issue with Beijing. Simultaneously, the Congress chief minister has set up an expert panel to study the implications of Dragon plans for Assam. Tibetan plateau is the major watershed in Asia and source of about ten major rivers including the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej and Indus. these rivers flow through India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. The Brahmaputra, enters Arunachal Pradesh, before emerging as the principal channel in the Assam valley, and flows down to Bangladesh while on its way to join the Bay of Bengal. Chinese experts claim that construction of a dam in Tibetan plateau would tame the mighty river saving India and Bangladesh the destruction caused annually by floods.

Professor Chen Chuanyu, the chief Chinese planner and a leading water expert told German TV ZDF that the hydropower plant was planned at the U-shaped turn of the river in South-east Tibet. The river drops by 2,755 metres in the 500 km-long ‘U’ section, leading to a water energy reserve of about 68 million kilowatts.

Environmentalists in Europe have put a new spin on the controversy. The perennial floods in India and Bangladesh, according to them, are due to massive deforestation by Chinese in Tibet. The China has since banned cutting and felling of trees in Tibet but the ban order has come a day too late - destruction is complete by now.