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China’s water project rollout worries India
China on Sunday unveiled a plan to relocate vast populations to make way for the south-north water diversion project. The project has caused concern among experts, who said it might affect the flow of the Brahmaputra in Assam.
The government has said it will try to find out if Chinese authorities are building a dam in Tibet as part of the project, which would cause serious harm to the Brahmaputra in India.
Authorities in Henan said they have drawn up a massive resettlement project involving 3,30,000 people living in central China’s Hubei and Henan provinces to make way for the water diversion project, which cuts across the whole country. The process of resettlement will be completed by 2011, sources said.
Areas around the proposed Danjiangkou reservoir will be evacuated to build sluices for diverting water from the Yangtze to meet requirements in Beijing, Tianjin, Henan and Hebei. Government sources said people evacuated from their lands will be resettled in areas where the soil quality is good. Xichuan county in Henan, which has 185 villages, will see resettlement of 162,000 people. Rehabilitation in Henan is scheduled to be completed by 2011, according to authorities.
The government said it has come up with preferential policies to help compensate for the relocation losses suffered by evacuated people. Besides compensation for immovable property like old houses, each relocated family will be allotted new arable land and an annual subsidy of 600 yuan ($88) a person for 20 years, the official media quoted Duan Shiyao, deputy chief of Hubei provincial resettlement bureau, as saying.
This is China’s second largest resettlement plan after the Three Gorges Hydropower Project, which involved resettlement of 1.27 million residents.
The government has said it will try to find out if Chinese authorities are building a dam in Tibet as part of the project, which would cause serious harm to the Brahmaputra in India.
Authorities in Henan said they have drawn up a massive resettlement project involving 3,30,000 people living in central China’s Hubei and Henan provinces to make way for the water diversion project, which cuts across the whole country. The process of resettlement will be completed by 2011, sources said.
Areas around the proposed Danjiangkou reservoir will be evacuated to build sluices for diverting water from the Yangtze to meet requirements in Beijing, Tianjin, Henan and Hebei. Government sources said people evacuated from their lands will be resettled in areas where the soil quality is good. Xichuan county in Henan, which has 185 villages, will see resettlement of 162,000 people. Rehabilitation in Henan is scheduled to be completed by 2011, according to authorities.
The government said it has come up with preferential policies to help compensate for the relocation losses suffered by evacuated people. Besides compensation for immovable property like old houses, each relocated family will be allotted new arable land and an annual subsidy of 600 yuan ($88) a person for 20 years, the official media quoted Duan Shiyao, deputy chief of Hubei provincial resettlement bureau, as saying.
This is China’s second largest resettlement plan after the Three Gorges Hydropower Project, which involved resettlement of 1.27 million residents.
TROUBLED WATERS: Experts are worried that the project may affect the flow of the Brahmaputra in Assam
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