Mullaperiyar fear.

One hundred and eighteen year old Mullaperiyar dam has undoubtedly become a matter of great havoc to people living on the banks of River Periyar. Not only the heavy water height the dam, heated exchange by the political heads has made the situation highly tense. People on the bank of river Periyar are panic. The permitted maximum water level of the reservoir is 136 feet and but with court order it is now 142 ft. As this was a rare phenomenon for past many years, people realized about the vast amount of water in the dam and that also made them more panic.

 Actually, the new leaks and the escalation of the old leaks could be very risky allowing for the age of the masonry dam built of surki, a technology available at the time of construction of the dam. The flaw of the dam is a matter of unending concern to people of Kerala as any danger to it could affect about 40 lakh people living in five districts of Kerala.

It is to be stressed that normal life time of any dam or atomic power plant is about 50 years. And in that case Mullaperiyar dam is a doubly expired one. So, the concern about safety of this dam is not mislaid. It should be abandoned on war-footing basis and new dam should be constructed. But Tamil Nadu is seen neglecting this aspect and not thinking about the dam safety. They are interested only with water they get from the dam and keeps scant regard to lives of million people of Kerala.

So it is time for Paneerselvam and his colleagues to stand favorably for the construction of new dam as there are all chances for the breaking of existing one causing huge human causality. If dam breaks and that too due to the negligence of the TN leaders no human endeavor could be able to repair the damage. So Paneer Selvam and Ommen Chandy, the two chief ministers of the states come together for an immediate discussion to reach a settlement over the Mullaperiyar imbroglio. TN should abandon its stance of strengthening of the dam. Instead the dam should be decommissioned first. Any disaster in the worst would certainly make political bosses of the states redundant and more worse is the loss of innocent human lives

K A Solaman