The water level of Mullaperiyar dam will reach 142 feet on November

The water level of Mullaperiyar dam will reach 142 feet on November 30

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Water Resources Minister S. Duraimurugan on Tuesday said that by November 30, the Mullaperiyar dam would store 142 feet of water as per norms.

In a statement issued here, Duraimurugan said that as per norms, the water in Mullaperiyar dam can be stored up to 142 feet on November 30 and the storage level will reach the day when the rainy season is expected to end.

He said that as per the rule curve on water storage level, the water storage level in the dam was 138.75 feet against the rule curve of 138 feet and hence the state was forced to release the excess water.

Duraimurugan said the storage norms were released recently and the people of old times were not aware of it.

On the issue of felling of trees under the Mullaperiyar Baby Dam, Duraimurugan said that Kerala Forest and Wildlife Department Deputy Director AP Sunil Babu had on November 6 informed the Tamil Nadu government about the permission to cut 15 trees.

Trees had to be cut to strengthen the Baby Dam. The Tamil Nadu government had sought permission to cut 23 trees.

Duraimurugan said permission to the Tamil Nadu government to cut 15 trees was issued by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden, Benichan Thomas, and wondered whether officials would write to another state without the state's forest minister's knowledge.

He said that out of goodwill, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had thanked his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan for allowing the trees to be felled.

Following Stalin's letter, the Kerala government revoked the permission to cut trees.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are at loggerheads over the dam built under the agreement of 1886 between the then Maharaja of Travancore and the then British Raj.

Although the dam is located in Kerala, it is owned, maintained and operated by Tamil Nadu.

The Supreme Court had ruled in Tamil Nadu's favor on May 5, 2014, and allowed the state to raise the water level in the Mullaperiyar dam to 142 feet from its earlier storage level of 136 feet.

In 2012, the Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court had held that the Mullaperiyar Dam is structurally safe.

In 2006 also, the top court had said that Kerala cannot prevent Tamil Nadu from raising the water level in the dam to 142 feet and carrying out repair work.

Let the Kerala government want to build a new dam, so that its control remains with it.

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