Minister for Water Resources P.J. Joseph said here on Tuesday that Kerala would be able to prove that the Mullaperiyar dam was unsafe before the Supreme Court.
This was the assessment he had received from Kerala's counsels after the empowered committee of the Supreme Court submitted its report. The report was unilateral and manipulated. The committee had accepted studies of Annamalai University and ignored the studies of IIT Delhi on hydrological stability and IIT Roorkee on seismic safety.
The Minister told a press conference that the government had sought another report from IIT Delhi in the light of the recommendations of the committee. Kerala would submit this before July 23 when the court would take up the case again.
Mr. Joseph said former judge of the Supreme Court K.T. Thomas was Kerala's representative in the Empowered Committee and he was appointed not by the court but by Union Water Resources Ministry. Mr. Thomas had said that he had informed the then Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran that he would not be able to act as a representative of Kerala. It was for Mr. Premachandran to clarify this matter. Tamil Nadu's representative had argued for Tamil Nadu, while Mr. Thomas failed to present Kerala's case that the dam was unsafe.
Asked about the refusal of Kerala Irrigation Department to disclose studies conducted on Mullaperiyar dam under the Right to Information Act, the Minister agreed that studies by the IITs on Mullaperiyar could be published on the new website of the Irrigation Design and Research Bureau. However, he was non-committal on publication of other reports. The website was inaugurated by the Minister during his press conference. The site has an online facility for submission of design proposals by engineers and feed data for early completion of design works.
