13.12.11

The Mullaperiyar row escalates



After Kerala assembly passed a resolution favouring a new dam to replace the Mullaperiyar reservoir, Tamil Nadu is undertaking a similar exercise to counter it. Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa on Sunday said a special assembly session on the Mullaperiyar dam will be convened on December 15 to pass a resolution that the state will not give up its rights because of “imaginary threat” to the dam’s safety. She said the problem could be resolved by presenting sound technical and scientific data to the Supreme Court and convincing it about “justness” of Tamil Nadu’s stand. Appealing for calm on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border, she said “we have no quarrel with Keralites. Therefore, destroying their property or causing injury to them and in the process also causing ourselves pain and hardship is not a solution.” The chief minister, who has been maintaining that Kerala’s concerns were based on unfounded fears, pleaded to the public to allow the government to handle the issue scientifically and logically and not get carried away emotionally. She asked people of border areas not to precipitate the situation and to disperse immediately. On Friday, the Kerala assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution to build a new dam to replace the reservoir and lowering the water level to 120 feet in the existing structure, at a special one-day session of the state assembly. Tamil Nadu, which receives water from the dam in Kerala’s Idukki district for irrigation in its southern districts, is opposed to any move to decommission the 116-year-old structure. After Jayalalithaa appealed in full-page advertisements released in major newspapers “not to succumb to divisive forces”, the Kerala government is now planning an advertisement campaign to counter claims made by Tamil Nadu on the safety of Mullaperiyar dam.

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