Filling up the Alchi dam

The northern most  region of India; Ladakh, is many a times called a cold desert. The weather is so extreme that this entire region remains cut off from the rest of the country, during harsh winter months. The region is surrounded by tall mountain ranges, which remain snow clad for major part of the year. Because of this reason, Ladakh is not a part of India's power grid, because with present technology, it is not possible to run transmission lines from Kashmir to Ladakh. As a result, Ladakh faces a huge power deficit. Being a mountainous region with heavily discharging rivers, it has a great potential for producing Hydro Electric power. However due to non accessibility of the area only one and that too a miniscule scale project was commisioned in 1980, generating just 4.5 MW, which is enough for Leh city itself. Currently the available power generation is grossly inadequate. Most parts of Ladakh get electricity for only about 5 hours, in a day and some remote villages do not have electrical power at all. Diesel generators and solar energy are used as an alternate source of energy to produce electricity when there are power cuts. With rapidly growing tourism industry and use of modern gadgets, total electrical demand has been rising at a fast pace.

About a decade ago, Federal government of India and the Jammu and Kashmir state government, took a decision to build series of small power generation projects in Ladakh to overcome its power deficit. Initially two power projects, one at Chuttuk (44MW) on the Suru River in Kargil with 44 MW capacity and another one named as Nimmo-Bazgo, near the Alchi village on Indus, were planned to be taken up. The first and the toughest diffficulty is taking up any river damming work in Ladakh is the treaty, which India has signed with Pakistan about sharing of river waters, which also includes all rivers in Ladakh including Indus. Since both these projects are run of the river, which means that the water is again release in the river bed, India never expected any international dispute with these two projects.

Village Alchi, in the Leh district of Ladakh is a famous tourist place with most of the tourists visiting the Buddhist monastery here, known for the great murals. Nimmo-Bazgo dam, that has come up near this village is a 57 meter high concrete gravity dam. It has 3 nos. of 3.3 meter diameter penstocks to carry the water to 3 Nos. of turbines with 15 MW capacity. All the water released from turbines would flow back in to bed of river Indus. This dam also is one of the highest hydel power projects in the world, located at over 10,000 feet above sea-level.

After India took the decision of starting construction of this dam, it informed Pakistan about the Nimoo Bazgo project six months before the initiation of its construction. In the next meeting of Indus water commission, there were some objections from Pakistan about the design and which were attended by India. During next three years, 2007,2008,2009, Pakistan never raised any objection or any issue about the design of the dam. In 2010 the chief Pakistani representative on the Indus water commission, commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah, retired. After his retirement, Pakistan suddenly found out that Nimmo-Bazgo pwer poject is actually very detrimental to its interests. (On what basis this conclusion was drawn is just not known), There was reporting in the news papers about how Syed Jamaat Ali Shah has betrayed the nation. It was obvious that someone was trying to find either a scapegoat or a way of personal revenge. Sensing this, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah moved his family and his assets to Canada and was granted interim asylum. There was also a talk of filing a lawsuit in the International Court of Arbitration.

In spite of all this hula-hula, during the secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan held in New Delhi on 5 July 2012, Pakistan agreed, perhaps realizing that it had no case, not to file a lawsuit in the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) over the controversial 45MW Nimoo-Bazgo hydroelectric power project on River Indus in Leh. The way was clear for filling up the Alchi dam gradually.

 (The caption under this photo claims that it is of Alchi dam, which appears to be doubtful)

India formally informed the Pakistan government later that the dam had been completed and was going to be filled. This again did not go well with Pakistani establishment. Pakistan now has objected to India's move to fill the Nimoo-Bazgo dam in Jammu and Kashmir, claiming that it could cut off Islamabad's share of water from the Indus river.

It is obvious that Pakistan's flip flops in this matter are a result of some internal strife or power game. In the first place, it is very well known that in a 'Run of a river' project, all the water discharged from turbines is let off again in the river for downstream use. It is difficult to understand how Pakistan's share of Indus water would be cut by this project. It is definitely possible that the river flows may go down to some extent as the dam gets filled. For this, the dam needs to be filled gradually after ensuring that the downstream users are not affected. India is bound to do this as per Indus water treaty. Pakistan's objections do not seem to hold any water at all.

Alchi dam is likely to be a great news for people of Ladakh. It is supposed to remain dependable for 90% of time in an year. Which means Alchi dam would provide power for most of the time of the year except few days in winter. People of Ladakh can look forward to days of comfort and happiness even in the harsh winter.

15 August 2012

Red Flag up for Bangladesh,India

China Starts construction of the first of the five dams on Brahmaputra River

Chinese plan for diversion of water resources, originating from Tibetan plateau, has become a highly contentious International issue between China on one hand and many downstream countries like India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. China is planning to build or is in the process of building dams, on all major rivers originating from Tibet. This is naturally creating much resentment and heartburn in the riparian downstream countries. The economies of these countries and the lives of their people are principally dependent on the waters flowing in these rivers. Yet, China continues to pay only lip service to this issue by issuing denials and arranging international seminars.China has yet not signed any river water treaty with any of the downstream country.

About 3 years back, media reports appeared for the first time, about possible Chinese plans, to build 5 dams on the river Brahmaputra in Tibet. As per Chinese practice, the Government immediately issued a statement and denied any such intention. Avid China watchers had then warned the Government of India that if Chinese Government is issuing prompt denials, it must be seriously considering the plan. Even a year ago, intention of taking up any such project was flatly denied by Chinese Government. When this matter come up at the time of the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to India, Chinese authorities were quick in rejecting the news as a baseless rumour to quell Indian public fears and sentiments. China’s Minister for Water Resources, Wang Shucheng, said the proposal was “unnecessary, unfeasible and unscientific, and had no government backing.” The China Daily reported, Wang Shucheng even saying that “There is no need for such dramatic and unscientific projects”. Later, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said (according to the China Daily) that “The Chinese government has no plans to build a dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River”.
In spite of these denials, details started leaking out in the Chinese press about construction of first such dam on Brahmaputra. With high quality satellite imagery now available to Internet users, it is impossible even for a secretive Chinese government to hide such a project from internet users. When latest images of the first dam construction were published on the internet, Chinese government had to accept this fact. The first dam on the Brahmaputra river is coming up at Zangmu (Tibetan name Dzam) having 92.522996 and 29.141999 as longitude and latitude. One of China’s biggest engineering and construction companies, China Gezhouba (Group) Corp, has been awarded a contract worth 1.14 billion yuan ($167 million) for a hydropower plant here. Gezhouba’s subsidiary, No 5 Engineering Co Ltd, will provide concrete and aggregate processing services for the Zangmu Hydropower project, the company says on its website. The company will be responsible for designing, constructing and running the project that supplies 3.4-million cu m of concrete and 8-million-ton aggregate for the water power station. The project is expected to last until the end of December 2015. Tibet Power Generation Co Ltd of China Huaneng Group, the country’s top power generator, would proved finance for the Zangmu Water Power Station. Zangmu Power station will start producing power in 2013. The electricity goes to Lhasa as a high voltage power line is planned for connecting the Lhasa power grid.


The dam is 389.5 m long and 76 m wide at the bottom and 19 m at the top. The flow rate of the river further down streams will be maintained. During normal operations the reservoir will have 86.6 million cubic meters of water.


This is the amount of water flowing on average about every 24 hours down the river. Installed power generating capacity is 510 MW and expected power generating capacity is 2.5 billion kw/h per year. The three villages of Zangmu, Tangmai and Dagu (Chinese names) would be submerged in the water reservoir. The local population would be resettled in part of Giacha and Sangri counties.


The second dam on Brahmaputra is now in planning stage. And would come up at 12 KM downstream from Zangmu dam. The location of the power station is 5 kilometers to the west or upstream of Giacha county seat. The installed power generating capacity is 320 MW and the dam will maintain a water level of 3244 m above sea level. The reservoir will be filled with 28.87 million cubic meters of water. The expected power generating capacity is 1.527 billion kw/h per year.
Concerns of downstream countries on Brahmaputra, i.e. India and Bangladesh seem to have been addressed at present as both of these would be run of the river projects. This means that river water would not be diverted at least at present. However when all the five dams would be completed eventually, one can not say for sure that water from reservoirs would never be diverted. Such an eventuality would turn out to be a major problem for India but would be a calamity or a disaster for Bangladesh.
During 1950, China’s People’s Liberation Army set out to ‘liberate’ the roof of the world. The government of India, having inherited past treaties signed by the British with Tibet, were not only shocked at China’s unprovoked military action in Tibet, but were also offended by how the Chinese government had disregarded its explicit assurances to India that Tibet would be left alone. The British and US governments had strongly supported the Indian position on Tibet and had offered all possible help to Tibet and India.
Most surprisingly, then Prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, suddenly decided then to wash his hands off Tibet and even dissuaded US government from giving military help to Tibet. He offered Tibet to China, on a platter, without any preconditions and failed to extract a price like settling border disputes between India and China and a concrete river water sharing agreements.
This is turning out to be the biggest and the blunder of the century, committed by the Government of Independent India and the repercussions of the same not only would haunt India but also other countries like Bangladesh and Myanmar for many many decades to come.
30 August 2010
You may also be interested in reading my earlier Blog on same subject.
Strongest takes all