Thekkady: The Supreme Court appointed supervisory committee headed by its new chairman Gulshan Raj along with two other committee members inspected the Mullaiperiyar dam on Tuesday.
S.K. Prabhakar, principal secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, public works department, Tinku Biswal, secretary Government of Kerala, water resources department, are the two other committee members who accompanied the chairman Gulshan Raj, who also chief engineer of dam safety, Central Water Committee (CWC). They examined main and baby dam for nearly two hours.
After the inspection, the committee had discussion with PWD officials from both Tamil Nadu and Kerala in Thekkady.
"We have discussed about various aspects of the dam," said Gulshan Raj to reporters after the completion of the meeting.
When reporters asked about the steps that would be taken to strength the baby dam for increasing water level to 152 feet, he said," We will discuss it,"
Interacting separately with mediapersons, R. Subramanian, chairman of the Cauvery Technical Committee, who participated in the meeting, said that to strengthen the baby dam, Kerala officials were requested to cut down 23 trees, to provide electricity connections and to lay road between Vallakadavu and Periyar dam.
When asked about disturbance from Kerala officials while carrying out maintenance work in the dam, he said that when two governments were involved in any work there would be minor disputes, which would be sorted out then and there.
The supervisory committee has decided to visit the dam again only in April 2018. It was nearly after 16 months, the committee have visited the dam today.
