NEW DELHI: The Supervisory Committee constituted by the Supreme Court for Mullaiperiyar dam decided there is no need to change the water level in the dam. The committee was directed by the top court to take an immediate decision on the appropriate water level, after certain petitioners raised alarm about the rising water level in the 126-year old dam amid heavy rains in Kerala.
“There was a meeting of the committee, the supervisory committee was seeing the issue on hourly basis. They have said no change is required. After minutes of meeting were drawn, Kerala has dissented, that they were not party to this,” the ASG had told a bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar.
Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the State of Kerala, submitted that there were devastating floods in Kerala in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and that the dam itself is the cause of flooding. Senior Advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Tamil Nadu, submitted, “Today’s (water level) position is 137.60 ft. Therefore, all these apprehensions are being unnecessarily magnified.
Rainfall has abated. In social media in Kerala there is a continuous campaign going on. The Kerala Chief Minister made a statement in Assembly that these apprehensions are misplaced, still the unfortunate part is that this campaign is going on.” He added that as per the SC judgment, TN is entitled to maintain water till 142 ft.
“What we propose to do is, they say the water level should not go beyond 139 feet. The water is anyway around 137. He says it shouldn’t be 139. There’s no forecast anyway. We are ready to hear this tomorrow”, Justice Khanwilkar observed while asking Kerala to respond. The bench was hearing two writ petitions filed by Kerala-based parties seeking urgent directions to restrict the water level in the dam, which is managed by TN.