By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Even as Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has given the go ahead to construct a new dam at Mullaperiyar near the site of an 111-year-old dam on the border with Tamil Nadu, the state government has commissioned a team of experts to do flood studies in and around the old dam area.
Speaking to IANS, State Irrigation Minister N.K. Premachandran said that a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee would arrive later this month to conduct flood routing studies.
“The report is being prepared to present the facts on the ongoing case in the Supreme Court between Tamil Nadu and Kerala on the Mullaperiyar dam issue,” said the minister.
Flood routing studies is a highly specialised branch of engineering to measure the exact nature of floods.
For a few years now Kerala has expressed grave concern over the safety of the old dam and fears have been raised that in case of damage to it, five nearby districts of Kerala would be submerged.
The waters of the dam, situated on the Periyar river at Mullaperiyar in Idukki district, about 240 km from here, are used to irrigate land in Tamil Nadu.
While Kerala has been maintaining that the dam is unsafe, Tamil Nadu has been demanding that the dam height be raised from 136 feet (41.5 metres) to 142 feet (43 metres) to meet its increasing irrigation demands.
With Kerala insisting that this would not be allowed, the Tamil Nadu government has approached the Supreme Court and the matter is now before the court.
“The proposed visit by the experts and their study on the dam is going to cost a fortune for Kerala. The team has been asked to give us a detailed report and it would be submitted to the apex court to strengthen our case of the present danger lurking (with the old dam),” said Premachandran.
On July 23, the state government decided to construct a new dam on the Periyar river.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been at loggerheads over the dam built under an agreement signed in 1886 between the then maharaja of Travancore and the British administration. It granted the then Madras Presidency the right to construct and maintain the dam and divert the water to irrigate arid lands in the Madurai region.
Several rounds of discussions between the two governments have failed to yield any positive result.