Dam dispute on hold as heavy rain lashes south

TRIVANDRUM: India’s Supreme Court has adjourned petitions from Kerala seeking to ensure the safety of the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar dam operated by the neighbouring Tami Nadu state.

A batch of petitioners moved the apex court raising concern about the safety of the dam once again as the reservoir’s catchment areas were receiving heavy rains since last month.

Apex court judges AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar while adjourning further hearing to November 22 observed that it was not looking at the dispute in an “adversarial manner.”

Tamil Nadu operates the dam in Kerala on a 999-year concession signed between Madras state (now Tamil Nadu) under the British and the Maharaja of Travancore 135 years back.

The petitioners say the colonial-era masonry gravity dam poses a threat to the lives of millions of people living downstream if it breaks in view of flood alerts.

The court made it clear that it would go by the views of an expert panel it constituted for supervising the dam six years ago.

The court adjourned the case on the request of Kerala that said it wanted more time to respond to the affidavit filed by the neighbouring state on Friday.

The court had last month ordered Tamil Nadu to maintain the reservoir’s water level as decided by the supervisory commitee till the next hearing date.

One of the petitioners, Periyar Protection Movement, sought an interim direction to Tamil Nadu to produce the dam’s seepage data.

“Five districts of Tamil Nadu need water and five districts of Kerala need protection (of life),” its lawyer VK Biju submited.

Tamil Nadu’s lawyer Shekhar Naphade argued that the new writ petition was one more atempt to “keep the pot boiling” and “to harass us” and promised to produce all records.

Tamil Nadu points out an apex court-appointed expert panel’s finding that the dam was “hydrologically, structurally and seismically safe.”

“It is not a one time consideration, it is a continuous mater,” Justice Khanwilkar said, responding to his argument.

“If there’s an evolving situation, how it’s been addressed has to be seen. If some input is available, we will have a look at it and then we’ll proceed.”

Earlier, Kerala has argued in an affidavit that the lime and surkhi structure is extremely vulnerable and its destruction can wreak widespread havoc downstream in Kerala.

“Logical next step is construction of a new dam to ensure water to Tamil Nadu and security to people living downstream and to decommission the existing dam,” it says.