The members of the Supreme Court-appointed Empowered Committee (EC) left for Tamil Nadu on Sunday morning after completing their visit in Kerala.
C.D. Thatte and D.K. Mehta, technical experts of the EC, started from here around 9 a.m. and crossed the border by road. They are accompanied by officials from both the States. The EC members are expected to visit Vaigai Reservoir among other places in Tamil Nadu.
The Kerala-leg of the EC team’s visit had not been exactly cordial with the State officials raising objections about the way Mr. Thatte conducted the inspection in Mullaperiyar dam and gave instructions to implement dam safety measures on Saturday. At one point, Kerala even boycotted the inspection after Mr. Thatte stopped irrigation chief engineer P. Lathika from raising a point.
However, Kerala officials continued to accompany the team and returned along with them after the dam visit, which the Mullaperiyar Special Cell chairman M.K. Parameswaran Nair later told the reporters was out of ‘courtesy and respect for guests.’
The EC team had reached Kochi on December 22 evening. Next day, they visited the Idukki arch dam and Cheruthoni in Idukki reservoir.
The visit was to assess whether the main dam at Idukki and Pampla dam on the downstream of the Mullaperiyar dam could contain the waters in the event something happens to Mullaperiyar dam.
