No evidence of diversion of Brahmaputra river waters: Bansal

The Centre today said there was no cause for concern over reports that China was constructing a dam to divert water from the Brahmaputra river, maintaining there was "no evidence of diversion of water".

Reacting to reports of attempts by Beijing to divert river waters from flowing into this country, Minister for Water Resources Pawan Kumar Bansal said the water storage project, being built inside Chinese territory, was for their local use.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a workshop on Parliament and the media, he clarified that "It is obviously a concern that China should not raise the height of the water storage project." However, he underlined, there was "no evidence of diversion of water". He was reacting to reports that the National Remote Sensing Agency had confirmed construction on the Zangmu site on the Chinese side of the Brahmaputra river.

Nevertheless India needed to be watchful, the Minister said.

Asserting that Beijing was well within its rights to utilise the water as it sees fit, he said the site was located about 1,100 km from the Indian border within Chinese territory. India was mainly concerned that there should be no reduction in the flow of water of 79 billion cubic metre (bcm) which flowed into the country. This was just a portion of the total of 629 bcm of river water that flowed out into neighbouring Bangladesh. The activities on the other side of the border had been picked up through satellite images, pointing to stepped up construction work.

However, since India did not have any treaties or Memorandum of Understanding with China regarding sharing of trans-boundary waters, the matter would be pursued politically at the level of the External Affairs Ministry.

The Minister admitted that in the event of diversion of water flow, its retention in a reservoir could prove problematic. India as a riparian state, however, had a right to the water. "Our demand is that from 79 bcm, the water flow should not be reduced -- not even 5 bcm, which if diverted is too much," Mr Bansal said.

In the absence of an MoU in this regard, India was planning to Pre-empt such an eventuality from arising by going in for construction of projects in Arunachal Pradesh, which was expected to strengthen New Delhi's claims as a riparian state.

-- (UNI) -- 05DI18.xml

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