China approves world’s largest, $137-billion dam on the Brahmaputra close to the Indian border

China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam, stated to be the planet's biggest infra project costing $137 billion, on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border, raising concerns in riparian states — India and Bangladesh. The Chinese government has approved the construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra, according to an official statement quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday (December 25, 2024).

The dam is to be built at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh. The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan ($137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet including China’s own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

China has already Operationalised the $1.5 billion Zam Hydropower Station, the largest in Tibet in 2015.

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