Mullaiperiyar dam whose water level touched 142 feet
Mullaiperiyar dam. (PHoto: DC/File)
Chennai: Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday urged the Tamil Nadu government to understand Kerala’s concern over the stability of the 117-year-old Mullaiperiyar dam whose water level touched 142 feet on Friday and said that his government had no problems sharing water with Tamil Nadu.
“Kerala’s stand on Mullaiperiyar dam is very clear. We are always ready to give water to Tamil Nadu. We are only concerned about the safety of the people. The dam is 117 years old. We are actually afraid for its safety and that is the only concern of the Kerala government,” he told reporters at the airport here.
Mr Chandy said the Tamil Nadu government must understand their concerns. “We know the importance of the water for five or six districts in this state,” he said, pointing to the dependence of the southern districts on water from the reservoir for irrigation.
When asked about the Tamil Nadu government seeking CISF security for the dam, he said that the safety of the Mullaiperiyar dam was the real worry. He claimed that wildlife had been ‘affected’, with the water level touching 142 feet.
The Kerala Chief Minister said that his government would approach the Supreme Court and express its concerns about the safety of the dam. “We already wrote to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, we will approach the Supreme Court and will convey all our concerns at the appropriate place,” he said on the sidelines of a function at the Kerala Samaj here.
Asked about the visit of Kerala MLA Biju Mol to the dam, which prompted Tamil Nadu to approach the Supreme Court seeking to deploy CISF personnel at the dam, Mr Chandy said, “That is not at all correct. She (Mol) is the local MLA. A lot of people have expressed their concern about the safety of the dam. So, against that background, she visited the place as an MLA, as a people’s representative. Nobody went along with her.”
Tamil Nadu and Kerala may be at loggerheads in sharing their water but these are the states that have better water storage in their reservoirs than last year, according to the Central Water Commission.
Karnataka has registered equal storage as last year, according to the latest data released by the Central Water Commission, which monitors live storage status of 85 important reservoirs of the country on a weekly basis.
Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Tripura, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh are states having lesser storage than last year, a Press Information Bureau release said.
Though Kerala and Tamil Nadu bettered their storage of water than last year, the southern region, as a whole was less than the corresponding period of last year and also less than the average storage of last ten years during the corresponding period, it said.
Of the 30 reservoirs in this region having total storage capacity of 51.37 bcm (billion cubic meter; 1 bcm = 1 lakh crore litre), there was an actual storage of 30.57 bcm, which is 60 per cent of total storage capacity, while the same during corresponding period of last year was 74 per cent, it said.
The water storage available in 85 important reservoirs of the country as on November 20, 2014 was 106.822 bcm, which is 69 per cent of total storage capacity of these reservoirs. This storage was 84 per cent of the storage of corresponding period of last year, it added.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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