Govt probe to find why Brahmaputra turned black

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the ministries of external affairs and water resources to find out why the waters of the Brahmaputra turned black and take remedial measures for it.

This was conveyed at a high-level meeting chaired by the prime minister and attended by Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and others on Tuesday evening, a statement issued by the Assam government said.

Modi assured Sonowal that the Centre had already taken up the issue of the Brahmaputra turning black seriously and even engaged the Central Water Commission to look into it and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to take remedial steps on a war footing. The prime minister also asked the External Affairs Ministry to take up the matter to get to the root cause of the problem and find a solution.

Swaraj said her ministry had contacted China and a pragmatic and exhaustive study was being undertaken to find the real cause, the statement said.

The prime minister also asked the other ministries to work in synergy and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure that scientific tests of the Brahmaputra waters are conducted to ascertain the physical and chemical composition of the river where it turned black.

The waters of the Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh, which is called Brahmaputra in Assam, turned black from November-end. The waters became muddy and cement-like apparently due to the construction of a 1,000-km tunnel by China to divert the waters.

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Attorney General KK Venugopal, Director of Intelligence Bureau Rajeev Jain besides others attended the meeting.