The State government is planning to approach the Supreme Court for seeking an order to restrain Kerala from preventing the Public Works Department (PWD) from carrying out regular maintenance work of the baby dam, a part of the Mullaperiyar reservoir.
PWD Principal Secretary M. Saikumar held discussions with a team of senior engineers and officials after inspecting the reservoir here on Thursday.
Among them were the Chairman of Cauvery Technical Cell R. Subramanian, PWD Engineer-in-Chief S.S. Rajagopal, Chief Engineer (Madurai Region) M. Sampath Kumar and Superintending Engineer (Periyar Vaigai Basin Circle) S. Mohanasundram.
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A senior official said that the technical members of the Supreme Court-appointed Empowered Committee, during their recent inspection of the dam, had raised the issue of “poor” maintenance of the 240-feet-long baby dam with Tamil Nadu officials. Representatives from Tamil Nadu pleaded their helplessness and complained that Kerala officials were not allowing them to carry out even “regular maintenance”.
“The 2009 Supreme Court order to maintain status quo at the dam site did not prevent Tamil Nadu officials from carrying out regular maintenance work. However, whenever our engineers go there even with a (single) bag of cement, the Kerala police stop them. Our engineers cannot do anything (about that),” the official said.
Even the technical committee members had disapproved of the Kerala officials' act, a senior PWD engineer said.
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“We are not going to seek a new direction on the issue from the Supreme Court, but will only pray for implementation of its own order.”