China-India relations: Beijing should speed up hydropower project, Tibetan official says

Planning and environmental impact assessments for dams on Yarlung Tsangpo River ‘should be approved as soon as possible’, region’s Communist Party deputy chief says

Chairman of the development company said in November the project would help to ensure China’s ‘water resources security and homeland security’. China should accelerate plans to build a hydropower plant on a river near its disputed border with India, a senior official said at a meeting on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress.

A proposal to construct dams on the lower reaches of the 2,900km (1,800 mile) Yarlung Tsangpo River was first presented in November and is included in China’s latest

five-year plan, which was released on Friday at the ongoing legislative meeting in Beijing. The river rises in Tibet before flowing through the Himalayas and into India, where it is known as the Brahmaputra.[Readmore]