India plans mega-dam to counter fears of China water control

On a football field surrounded by misty mountains, the air rang with fiery speeches as tribesmen protested against a planned mega-dam - India's latest move in its contest with China over Himalayan water.

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Workers at a hydroelectric project site on the Dibang River in Arunachal Pradesh in August. India's drive in building massive dams suggests the country will not back down on a proposed mega-dam to counter China's construction of what is likely a record-breaking dam upstream in Tibet.

(PHOTO: AFP)

India says the proposed new structure could counter rival China's building of a likely record-breaking dam upstream in Tibet by stockpiling water and guarding against releases of weaponised torrents.

But for those at one of the possible sites for what would be India's largest dam, the project feels like a death sentence.

"We will fight till the end of time," said Mr Tapir Jamoh, a resident of the thatch-hut village of Riew, raising a bow loaded with a poison-tipped arrow in a gesture of defiance against the authorities.

"We will not let a dam be built."

The homelands of the Adi people are in the far-flung northeastern corner of India, divided from Tibet and Myanmar by soaring snowy peaks.

Proposed blueprints show India considering the site in Arunachal Pradesh for a massive storage reservoir, equal to four million Olympic-size swimming pools, behind a 280m high dam.

The project comes as China presses ahead with the US$167 billion (S$216 billion) Yaxia project upstream of Riew on the river known in India as the Siang, and in Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing's plan includes five hydropower stations that could produce three times more electricity than its vast Three Gorges dam - the world's largest power station - though other details remain scant.

China - which lays claim to Arunachal Pradesh, fiercely rejected by India - says it will have no "negative impact" downstream.