The Supreme Court on Thursday said any “half-baked” arrangement will “destroy the dam” and refused to overhaul the court-formed Mullaperiyar dam supervisory committee, which will continue to oversee the safety and maintenance aspects of the 126-year-old structure until the new authority under the Dam Safety Act, 2021 becomes fully operational in a year.
A Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar will pronounce the order in open court on Friday while indicating that it will go ahead and increase the ambit and power of the supervisory committee. The court said it would add a Technical Member each from Kerala and Tamil Nadu to the panel.
The court, however, disagreed with Kerala’s suggestion to replace the Chairman of the supervisory committee, Gulshan Raj, a Chief Engineer with the Dam Safety Organisation, with the Chairman of the Central Water Commission (CWC).
Kerala, represented by senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, said the current supervisory committee Chairman was lower in rank than the Additional Chief Secretaries of the two States who are members of the supervisory panel.
At one time during the hearing, Mr. Gupta even ventured to submit in court that the supervisory committee itself should be changed.
“This is an arrangement that has been going on since 2014... For eight years, there have been no issues except for apprehensions which have to be taken care of. Forming a new committee, an overhaul, would mean the new members would take time to acclimatise to the situation. The existing committee with members who have past experience will come to the rescue of dealing with apprehensions which may come up from time to time. That will be more effective management,” Justice Khanwilkar addressed Mr. Gupta.
The court dissuaded Kerala from engaging in “experiments” when the present arrangement of the supervisory committee was working well.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, for the government, also submitted that Mr. Raj should continue to head the supervisory committee.
Ms. Bhati said the earlier suggestion of replacing Mr. Raj with the CWC Chairman to head the supervisory panel was not feasible as the latter was part of 21 other committees and may not have the time.
Instead, the Member (Disaster and Resilience) of the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA), a Chief Engineer with the CWC, could be included in the Mullaperiyar dam supervisory panel while Mr. Raj could continue as its Chairman. The Member (Disaster and Resilience) of the temporary NDSA, being a Chief Engineer, would be of the same rank as Mr. Raj, Ms. Bhati submitted.
“Substantial work has been done by the supervisory committee over the years,” Ms. Bhati submitted.
“Then we will not disturb the present supervisory committee... We will only permit one Technical Member each from Kerala and Tamil Nadu... and as and when required, this supervisory committee can always consult the Member (Disaster and Resilience) of the NDSA,” Justice Khanwilkar observed orally.
The Centre, through the Ministry of Jal Shakti, had notified on March 30 the temporary structure of the NDSA with the Member (Design and Research) of the CWC holding additional charge as its Chairman.
Other Chief Engineers of the CWC would be part of the temporary NDSA in the capacities of Member-Policy and Research, Member-Technical, Member-Regulation, Member-Disaster and Resilience. A Joint Secretary of the Ministry would be Member-Administration and Finance. This arrangement would continue, at least for a year, until a permanent body of the NDSA was appointed under the Dam Safety Act.
Once the NDSA is fully functional, the functions of the supervisory committee would be taken over by the Authority and the committee could be dissolved.
The court had found in the Dam Safety Act a comprehensive solution to inter-State dam disputes, especially in cases like the Mullaperiyar dam, which is located in Kerala and operated by Tamil Nadu.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been trading allegations against each other over the safety, operation and maintenance of the Mullaperiyar dam. While Kerala claims the 126-year-old dam is unsafe, badly maintained and a threat to thousands of people living downstream, Tamil Nadu denies it. Kerala is pitching for a new dam in place of the existing one while Tamil Nadu, which operates and maintains the reservoir, argues that the dam is well-preserved and so strong that the height of the water level could even be increased to 152 feet.
