The district administration of Idukki, Kerala on Saturday evening instructed the people living downstream from the 118-year-old Mullaperiyar dam to move to relief camps as the water level in the reservoir climbed rapidly to touch the 141-feet mark, five feet above the level considered safe for the ancient-technology dam.
As many as 450 families living on the banks of River Periyar, on which the dam had been built, were asked to relocate themselves to the relief camps on Saturday itself. The instructions to shift were given to people who could be affected when flooding occurs in Periyar when the spillway shutters of the dam were opened.
This is the first time the water level in the Mullaperiyar reservoir has been allowed to rise to the present level in the past 22 years. The water level has been rising rapidly since Friday as heavy rains were lashing the catchment areas bringing 3,357 cubic feet of water per second into the reservoir while Tamil Nadu refused to increase the offtake volume from 857 cubic feet per second.
Tamil Nadu, which is controlling the dam as per a 128-year-old agreement, allowed the dam water level to rise from 136 feet, at which it had been fixed so far, on the basis of a May 7 supreme Court order, which permitted that state to up the level up to 142 feet. Chennai had till late Saturday evening refused to draw more water.
Panic grew to unimaginable levels in the villages in downstream areas from the dam on Saturday as the water level in the age-weakened dam continued to climb crossing danger marks one after the other. The administration of Idukki district, in which the dam is located, held an emergency meeting and opened control rooms and relief camps to shift the people from these villages.
“We are going through this fear and anxiety every monsoon. It is we who are suffering when politicians in the two states are fighting a farcical ego battle,” said Pappachan, a farmer in Vallakkadvu, a village just below the Mullaperiyar dam. “We are going through this maddening anxiety because of this dam which is of no use to us,” he added.
Tamil Nadu had been consistently refusing to lower the water level seemingly in an effort to prove that the dam was strong enough to contain water levels up to 142 feet or even 152 feet while Kerala was arguing that the dam, commissioned in 1896 and sitting over a dangerous fault-line, could not withstand such immense water pressure.
As the water level rose to 141 feet, several hectares of land coming under the Periyar Tiger Reserve were inundated and water covered almost half of the boat-landing facility at Thekkadi tourism centre. Experts said that over 550 hectares of the Periyar Tiger Reserve could go under water when the reservoir level touched 142 feet.
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 Rs 40,000 per year. This fee was raised from Rs 5 per acre to Rs 30 when the pact was renewed in 1970.
Kerala Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash said on Saturday that there was no reason for the people living on the banks of the River Periyar to panic as all arrangements had been made to relocate them if need be.