Within 24 hours of Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa raising the issue with the Prime Minister, the Centre on Monday told Tamil Nadu that it has deferred constituting an experts’ team to draw up a “contingency response plan” in the event of some disaster hitting the Mullaperiyar dam.
The chief minister had expressed shock that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which functions under the Prime Minister, was setting up the expert team which in effect could help Kerala pressure the empowered committee of the Supreme Court to declare the dam as unsafe. The NDMA has now informed Tamil Nadu that its team will not be formed until the SC’s empowered committee gave its report, according to reliable sources.
Ms Jayalalithaa had described the NDMA move to set up the team to draw up the contingency plan as nothing but succumbing to the subterfuge of the Kerala government and presenting a fait accompli to the apex court and its empowered committee. The NDMA team was to draw up “inundation and submergence models” to tackle disaster situations such as an earthquake, while the true position as explained more than once by the chief minister in her letters to the PM was that the dam was “as strong as new”.
Meanwhile, DMK president M. Karunanidhi said in a statement that the Prime Minister had assured him on Monday morning that the Centre will consider deploying CISF to protect the Mullaperiyar dam and also take steps to ensure that the relations between Tamil Nadu and Kerala did not sour further due to this row. Several political leaders in Tamil Nadu, including chief minister Jayalalithaa, had demanded that the Centre deploy the CISF after some people in Kerala recently tried to damage the dam.