BEIJING - Amid concerns in India and Bangladesh over China's plans to construct a dam on the Brahmaputra in Tibet, Chinese officials today started an inspection of how water from the Himalayan region's major rivers, including Yarlung Zangbo is used.

Officials from the environment and resources committee of the Tibet Autonomous Regional People's Congress (local legislature) kicked off a large-scale examination of how water from the region's five major rivers is used.

"As part of a nationwide environmental protection drive, the campaign will be the longest and most wide-ranging examination of the region's use of water resources," Xinhua news agency quoted the deputy director of the standing committee of the Tibet Autonomous Regional People's Congress, Luosang Toinzhub as saying in Lhasa.

During the period from May 8 to June 3, more than 20 members from the environment and resources committee of the regional people's congress will travel along the rivers - Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra), Nyangchu, Lhasa, Niyang and Yarlung to collect information and statistics about the water resources in these rivers.

The focus will be on the protection of drinking water, construction of small hydropower plants and pollution treatment facilities, as well as the building and maintenance of water conservancy facilities, said Luosang Toinzhub, who is also deputy head of the organising committee of the environmental protection programme in Tibet.

The examination will be carried out in 16 counties in Lhasa, Xigaze, Shannan and Nyingchi areas. China plans to divert 200 billion cubic metres of water annually to the Yellow River by building a dam at Yarlung Tsangpo.

China has maintained that it has no plans to dam Yarlung Zangbo in Tibet.