Kerala has blamed Tamil Nadu in the Supreme Court of not installing critical instruments at the Mullaperiyar dam to keep a watch on seismic data despite recommendation by the Dam Safety Assurance Rehabilitation Project (DSARP) three decades ago.
“The State of Kerala has been persistently requesting the State of Tamil Nadu to install two seismic accelerographs as recommended by a DSARP panel and the issue was also discussed in the Supervisory Committee meetings. However, Tamil Nadu has not yet installed the two strong motion accelerographs, one at the main dam and other one in the gallery in the concrete backing portion, as recommended by the Dam Safety Assurance Rehabilitation Project (DSARP) 1991, even after three decades,” an affidavit filed by Kerala in the top court contended.
Kerala said the accelerographs would have helped to gather sufficient data based on the relative responses of the dam and the new concrete backing to seismic events. The State said the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar dam lies in seismic zone-III in the seismic zoning map of India.
Panel’s observation
Kerala said the Supervisory Committee had in January 2020 also observed that embedded instruments at the dam were not working. The State said the committee had even requested Tamil Nadu to expedite the installation of instrumentation in the dam.
“The Chairman, Supervisory Committee in the 14th meeting held on February 19 last year had felt the necessity for the procurement of seismometers and accelerometers in addition to the non-functional embedded instruments in the dam and requested the Government of Tamil Nadu to complete the installation of the seismic instruments before the next supervisory committee meeting,” the affidavit said.
The case came up for hearing before a Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar on Tuesday. However, Tamil Nadu sought time to respond to Kerala’s affidavit. The court has scheduled the hearing for March 23.
Kerala further submitted that modern satellite technology methods such as GPS deformation monitoring systems installed in the Libby dam in Montana, United States, need to be installed in the Mullaperiyar dam for “continuous surveillance and high accuracy measurement on the behavior of the dam”.
