SC adjourns Mullaperiyar Dam case hearing, to resume tomorrow
Mar 22, 2022
New Delhi [India], March 22 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on Mullaperiyar dam dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The matter was adjourned for Wednesday by a bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar.
The bench was informed by the counsel of the Tamil Nadu government that Kerala has filed new affidavits today morning and therefore the Tamil Nadu government sought adjournment.
Earlier, Kerala had submitted before the Supreme Court that the only permanent solution for removing the eternal threat of damage to the Mullaperiyar dam is to build a new dam and sought that judgment of 2014 be reviewed by a larger bench.
Tamil Nadu had urged the court to direct the State of Kerala to cooperate and provide all necessary assistance in a time-bound manner so that the remaining strengthening and maintenance works of Mullaiperiyar Dam were implemented in letter and spirit.
The court was hearing a matter relating to Mullaiperiyar Dam, a longstanding dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
One of the applicants said that Mullaperiyar Dam, an over-a-century old gravity dam of 53.6 m in height and a reservoir capacity of 443 million, is built on the Periyar River in Kerala. The petitioners sought an appropriate direction to the Tamil Nadu government to construct a new dam and also augment the storage capacity of the Vaigai dam or construct additional dams or reservoirs to store the water drawn from the dam.
The dam was constructed in 1895 by the British government to provide irrigation and eventually began to generate power. The applicants said that it is located in a seismically active area and a minor earthquake is said to have caused cracks in the dam in 1979 and that in 2011, more cracks appeared in the dam due to seismic activity.
The petitioners have also sought that they may be granted some time to produce more evidence on aging dams and reports of several experts and to issue appropriate direction to the States of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and the Central Government to put in place adequate safety mechanisms to keep the loss to life and damage to property to the lowest possible in the event of the unthinkable happening, pending construction of a new dam meeting the highest of safety standards.
