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Mullaperiyar: Chandy to meet PM, TN approaches SC
Thiruvananthapuram: The Mullaperiyar dam issue hotted up today with Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy planning to take up the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Tamil Nadu government approaching the Supreme Court accusing Kerala of whipping up 'fear psychosis' on the issue. Chandy, who is leaving for Delhi tonight, is slated to meet the Prime Minister and other Central leaders tomorrow to drum up support for the construction of a new dam in place of the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar reservoir, citing safety concerns.
Chandy today wrote a letter to his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa to take steps to reduce the water level in the reservoir to 120 feet as an immediate step to remove the anxiety of the people. In an urgent application to the Supreme Court, Tamil Nadu alleged that Kerala, despite a status quo order by the apex court, was making public statements on pulling down the century-old dam and constructing a new one in its place.
In his letter, which highlighted the "weak" condition of the dam located in a "quake-prone" area, Chandy said he expected that Jayalalithaa would "appreciate the anxiety and act accordingly." "What is more important than the lives of people? How can we sit idle when faced with such grave threat of fearful magnitude? Who can guarantee that nothing untoward would happen?," Chandy, who is writing to Jayalalithaa for the first time since the issue escalated, said. Reiterating the state's slogan "water for Tamil Nadu and safety for Kerala', Chandy said though the dam's stability had always been "a source of anxiety in Kerala", the issue had assumed an urgency with "anxiety giving way to panic" in the backdrop of as many as 26 tremors in the area since this July.
It was important to take some urgent steps to remove the fears without waiting for the Supreme Court verdict in the case or report of the empowered committee which had been considering legal and technical aspects of the issue, Chandy said.
With the UDF and opposition LDF joining hands on the issue, the government has convened a special one-day session of the state assembly on December 9 to adopt a resolution affirming the state's position for a new dam. An all-party meet would also be convened on December 6 to discuss the content of the resolution to be adopted in the assembly and put across the message that the entire political spectrum was united on the issue. Meanwhile,political lobbying for an amicable settlement of the tangle continued in Delhi also with some of the Left MPs seeking the Prime Minister's intervention. Members from Tamil Nadu and Kerala raised the issue in both Houses of Parliament.
In the Lok Sabha, AIADMK members rushed to the Well seeking implementation of the Supreme Court directive on raising the storage level of the dam to 142 ft. On the other hand, members from Kerala entered the Well demanding that the water level be maintained at 120 ft keeping in mind safety of the 116-year-old structure. In various parts of Idukki district, where the dam is located, protests continued to gain momentum. Kerala Water Resources Minister P J Joseph and Assembly Speaker G Karthikeyan visited the dam site.
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