China tunnel turning Siang water black, Arunachal Congress MP tells PM Modi
The MP has written that the Siang — as the river is called in Arunachal — had become “muddy and slushy, black and contaminated” and fish and other aquatic life had disappeared.
Siboks, the traditional fishing instruments of the Adi tribe, stand on the bed of a small stream in Arunachal Pradeshs Siang Valley, where the rivers have owners. Adi tribesmen do not just own land but parts of rivers that adjoin their hilly private holdings. While dynamiting and electrocution are disallowed and attract stiff fines, even traditional fishing is strictly regulated through the year and completely banned during the fish-breeding season, when even the rivers owners are not allowed to fish. Express archive photo.
China’s construction of a 1000-km tunnel to divert water of the Brahmaputra — Tsangpo in Tibet — has seriously affected water quality of the river, causing it to be thick, black, muddy and “cement-like” as it enters India, Arunachal Pradesh’s Congress MP Ninong Ering has said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought “immediate action”.
Ering has written that the Siang — as the river is called in Arunachal — had become “muddy and slushy, black and contaminated” and fish and other aquatic life had disappeared. “There is no other reason that the mighty Siang should be dirty and black in the month of November, but has occurred due to heavy excavation on the Chinese side, which has to be verified by an international team,” Ering said in his letter.
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The MP said: “Never before in people’s memory has the river’s water quality deteriorated in such a way…. I am sure China is doing something to the river which is a common property of three nations, including India and Bangladesh.”
