The State government on Friday informed the Madras High Court Bench here that it has already begun preliminary works for desilting the Vaigai dam in Theni district at a cost of Rs.1.45 crore and with the assistance of Water and Power Consultancy Service (WAPCOS), a Central public sector undertaking under the Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian made the submission before the First Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice S. Manikumar during the hearing of contempt of court application filed against Public Works Department Secretary for allegedly not complying with an order passed by Justices R. Sudhakar and V.M. Velumani on February 4 last year.
The First Bench closed the contempt application, moved by K.K. Ramesh, Managing Trustee of Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, a private organisation, after recording the submission made by the AAG who stated that experts from WAPCOS visited the dam on December 3 and prepared an ‘Inception Report’ which was at present being scrutinised by top officials of PWD.
Prompt action
Filing a one-page report on behalf of the PWD, the AAG said that the question of contempt of court orders does not arise at all since the Government had acted promptly and passed an order on September 22, 2014 for preparing of a detailed project report and conducting an Environment Impact Assessment Study before commencement of desilting work at the dam site.
In his affidavit, the contempt applicant had claimed that more than 20 feet of the dam’s total height of 71 feet was filled with silt thereby crippling its storage capacity to a great extent.
Hence, he submitted a representation to the State Government to desilt the dam at the earliest and obtained an order from the Division Bench of Mr. Justice Sudhakar to consider the representation.
