Mullaperiyar: Dam panel seeks more time

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The Supreme Court-appointed empowered committee on Mullaperiyar dam, whose term ends this month, has sought time till April to submit its final report.

The five-member panel, headed by former Chief Justice of India A.S. Anand, has said it has to receive another study report before concluding its report on the most contentious safety aspect of the structure.

The committee’s request for extension of its term has come at a time when all eyes are on its decision after the Centre’s efforts to mediate between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, who have been at loggerheads over the century-old dam, failed repeatedly.

The panel, formed to look into all aspects of the dam row, had maintained until early this month that it would finish its task within the stipulated time.

Sources said the Kerala government, earlier this month, had written to the committee to coordinate (C2C) under the empowered panel that a crucial test was not carried out to determine the reservoir’s safety.

They also said Kerala had then insisted on postponing the submission of the panel’s final report saying that it would be incomplete if the remaining borehole study was not conducted.

However, speaking to this newspaper, the chairman of the Kerala government’s Mullaiperiyar cell, Mr M.K. Parameshwaran, said the state had no right to seek postponement of the report.

He maintained that the state had only emphasised its “long-standing concern” that three more boreholes were to be grilled in spite of it being very crucial and approved by the committee as early as in October 2010.

The committee, after meeting here on Wednesday, has decided to hold another sitting on February 26.