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UWAHATI: A day after the Centre said it would will find out whether China is really building a dam across the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra
River, called the Yarlung Tsangpo, the Assam chief minister on Friday said there should be a back-up plan in place "in case of any eventuality".
On Thursday, the ministry of external affairs ministry said New Delhi was scanning media reports that China has begun constructing a dam on the Brahmaputra as part of the Nagmu hydroelectric project, which was inaugurated on March 16.
"We do not want to depend solely on the Centre. We will prepare a contingency plan on our own so that we know what measures need to be taken to face any situation. We may engage IIT for the exercise. If the Yarlung Tsangpo is diverted, the Brahmaputra will become dry," said Gogoi ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and foreign minister S M Krishna next week.
An expert committee, said Gogoi, will be set up to examine the possible effects a diverted Tsangpo will have on the Brahmaputra. "I am meeting the PM, the foreign minister and the water resource minister and try to know the actual position of the Chinese plans," he said.
"This is not the first time that plans to dam the Tsangpo and divert its flow by China have come to fore. Last time in 2006, the plan surfaced and I had taken it up with the Prime Minister very strongly. He later took it up with his Chinese counterpart," Gogoi added.
An MEA spokesman on Thursday claimed that during the meetings held between the two countries, the Chinese side had categorically denied that there's any plan to build any largescale diversion project on the Yarlung Tsangpo.
The Brahmaputra, which flows 918 km inside India before falling into the Bay of Bengal, originates from headsprings in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo. It flows across southern Tibet and for about 1,625 km before entering India through Arunachal Pradesh where it's called the Dihang.
After the first instance when the Chinese plans were reported in 2006, the two countries agreed to establish an expert level mechanism to discuss trans-border river issues in an institutional way. However, recent reports in the Chinese media indicate that one of China's biggest engineering and construction companies, Gezhouba Corporation, has won a 1.14 billion yuan bid for the hydropower plant in Zangmu, in the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra.
UWAHATI: A day after the Centre said it would will find out whether China is really building a dam across the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra
River, called the Yarlung Tsangpo, the Assam chief minister on Friday said there should be a back-up plan in place "in case of any eventuality".
On Thursday, the ministry of external affairs ministry said New Delhi was scanning media reports that China has begun constructing a dam on the Brahmaputra as part of the Nagmu hydroelectric project, which was inaugurated on March 16.
"We do not want to depend solely on the Centre. We will prepare a contingency plan on our own so that we know what measures need to be taken to face any situation. We may engage IIT for the exercise. If the Yarlung Tsangpo is diverted, the Brahmaputra will become dry," said Gogoi ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and foreign minister S M Krishna next week.
An expert committee, said Gogoi, will be set up to examine the possible effects a diverted Tsangpo will have on the Brahmaputra. "I am meeting the PM, the foreign minister and the water resource minister and try to know the actual position of the Chinese plans," he said.
"This is not the first time that plans to dam the Tsangpo and divert its flow by China have come to fore. Last time in 2006, the plan surfaced and I had taken it up with the Prime Minister very strongly. He later took it up with his Chinese counterpart," Gogoi added.
An MEA spokesman on Thursday claimed that during the meetings held between the two countries, the Chinese side had categorically denied that there's any plan to build any largescale diversion project on the Yarlung Tsangpo.
The Brahmaputra, which flows 918 km inside India before falling into the Bay of Bengal, originates from headsprings in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo. It flows across southern Tibet and for about 1,625 km before entering India through Arunachal Pradesh where it's called the Dihang.
After the first instance when the Chinese plans were reported in 2006, the two countries agreed to establish an expert level mechanism to discuss trans-border river issues in an institutional way. However, recent reports in the Chinese media indicate that one of China's biggest engineering and construction companies, Gezhouba Corporation, has won a 1.14 billion yuan bid for the hydropower plant in Zangmu, in the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra.
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