Panic among the people living in the downstream reaches of the 118-year-old Mullaperiyar dam situated within Kerala territory de-escalated slightly on Sunday as the water level in the reservoir dropped to 141 feet from Saturday night’s level of 141.2 feet even as Tamil Nadu rejected Kerala’s request to take steps for bringing down the dam water level to 136 feet.
However, the calm and joy of life of a usual Sunday was missing among the people living on the banks of River Periyar, on which the Mullaperiyar dam had been built, as the water level still remained five feet above the hitherto accepted safer level of 136 feet. This is for the first time in 22 years the water level in Mullaperiyar has risen to the present level.
“We won’t be able to sleep peacefully until this curse of a dam is decommissioned and demolished,” said a local resident near the dam. However, he thanked God for the lull in the rains in the dam’s catchment areas which had brought down the water inflow to the dam to 1,537 cubic feet per second on Sunday from 3,357 cubic feet per second on Saturday.
This drop in the inflow and the slight increase in the offtake by Tamil Nadu, which has the exclusive right over the Mullaperiyar dam water, from 857 cubic feet per second of Saturday to 906 cubic feet per second on Sunday had led to the drop in the reservoir water level from 141.2 feet to 141 feet.
The water level was allowed to rise to the present level by Tamil Nadu, which controls the dam and reservoir as per an 1886 agreement, on the basis of a Supreme Court order of May 7 permitting it to be risen to 142 feet on the basis of the assumption that the Surki-concrete, ancient-technology dam commissioned in 1896 was still strong.
On Sunday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam wrote a letter to his Kerala counterpart Oommen Chandy rejecting the latter’s request to take urgent steps to retain the water level at 136 feet. Chandy had on Friday requested Panneerselvam to instruct officials to take the required steps to bring down the water level considering the panic among the people on the Kerala side.
In his letter, Panneerselvam said his Government was determined to keep the water level at 142 feet on the basis of the Supreme Court order and asked for Kerala’s cooperation in this. He said Tamil Nadu could not afford to lower the water level as the farmers in five of its districts were dependent solely on Mullaperiyar for water.
Panic had reached unimaginable levels among the people on the banks of Periyar on Saturday night after the authorities of Idukki district, in which the dam is situated, asked 149 families in seven downstream villages to move immediately to relatives’ homes in safer areas or the 13 relief camps set up temporarily.
The people refused to move from their houses saying that the authorities had thought of taking such measures only after things had worsened to the present level. Despite the gravity of the situation which necessitated nightly evacuation, there had been no street lights in the area. The authorities had also not ensured any lighting at the relief camps.
A high-level meeting would be held at the Idukki district collectorate on Monday morning to take stock of the situation. The meeting, which would review the authorities’ preparedness for meeting emergency situations, has been convened by Kerala Water Resources Minister PJ Joseph, who had led an intense anti-Tamil Nadu campaign over Mullaperiyar in 2011.
As per an agreement signed in 1886 between the then Government of Madras (today’s Tamil Nadu) and Maharaja of Travancore, Tamil Nadu could draw the entire water of the Mullaperiyar reservoir spread over 8,000 acres of forest land for 999 years for a lease fee of `40,000 per year. This fee was raised from `5 per acre to `30 when the pact was renewed in 1970.