Will the pick reservoir level of the Kutku dam also known as Mandal dam be reduced to minimise the submergence area falling under the Tiger Reserve PalamuIJ If sources are to be believed, the Central Water Commission is mulling over the idea in this regard. As this dam is a joint venture of Bihar and Jharkhand governments the consent of the both would be essential for any reduction in the height of the dam which is 367 metres.
Bihar Government is understood to have agreed to lower it down to 363 meter. However the Government of India is toying with the idea to further reduce it to 352 meters. DFO Buffer of the Tiger Reserve Palamu Mahalinga on being contacted said, “A talk is just on with regard to the reduction of the height. There is no official communication. Nevertheless it is the subject of discussion among the officials of the central water commission who inspected the Mandal dam site on May 14.”
Member state wild life board Jharkhand DS Srivastava also affirmed about a discussion continuing among the higher echelon of power with regard to bringing down the top height of this dam keeping in view the huge submergence of the tiger reserve. "The irrigation department blames PTR and forest for the excessive delay but to me it is the irrigation department that has put this dam on the back seat in all these years since it has not come out with any rehabilitation programme for villages that are to go under water."
Irrigation department claims to have paid the compensation in the early eighties for the dam and since then refuse to have any liability but there exist full grown villages now threatened by this dam if and when completed and started. As per the survey conducted by the Palamu tiger reserve in 1985, six villages in PTR were to submerge fully while eleven villages were to suffer from partial submergence. The DFO too corroborated this.
Sources said survey conducted by National Tiger Conservation Authority Delhi too had found eleven villages going under water of the dam besides some other villages facing a kind of 'locking' which means getting cut off from the rest of the world. Sources said the Prime Minister Office (PMO) is also serious about this dam which is a non starter for the last three and a half decade. The inspection of the dam by central water commission led by TP Sinha and Sanjay Pathak of NTCA bespeaks volume of the concern of the PMO.
The dam has a notoriety tag following the brutal murder of engineer related to the project Baijnath Mishra who was killed by MKSS (Mazdoor Kissan Sangharsh Samiti) of the then dreaded CPI Ml Party Unity naxal organisation. CBI which probed the murder has caught about half a dozen for allegedly involved in the killing.