Tamil Nadu Public Works Department (PWD) engineers going to the Mullaperiyar dam site for regular inspections were allegedly harassed again by Kerala forest officials at Thekkady near here on Thursday.
The forest officials allegedly stopped a team of three engineers – executive engineer A. Soundaram, sub-divisional officer Akbar Ali and assistant engineer Ramamurthy – near the boat boarding point of the Periyar reservoir, demanding their identity cards and insisting on prior permission to visit the dam. They were not allowed to board the PWD boat, sources here said.
The engineers immediately took the issue to the notice of State-level officers. After three hours of negotiation, the forest personnel guarding the entry point near the Kerala Tourism Office advised the engineers to go to the main check-post office at the entrance and sign the register before boarding the boat. They were also told that that they should sign the register before coming to the boarding point.
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Later, the engineers reached the dam in the PWD boat for inspection. The Madurai-based PWD officials were on deputation to monitor maintenance work being taken up in the dam.
Official sources said that such irritant, faced by the Tamil Nadu officials again, was a throwback to the pre-2011 days.
The National Green Tribunal recently granting an interim stay on Kerala’s development of a parking lot near Thekkadi appears to have irked the Kerala State officials, sources pointed out.
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This is the second instance of harassment of Tamil Nadu engineers near the dam site in recent days.
Executive engineer A. Madhavan was manhandled by a group of persons who accompanied Peermedu MLA Biju Mol during a recent visit to the dam.
Tamil Nadu has also been pressing for deployment of Central Industrial Security Force personnel at the dam site to avoid such hassles.