Mullaperiyar

Living on the edge

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 The name is derived from a portmanteau of Mullayar and Periyar.
As the dam is located after the confluence of the Mullayar and
Periyar Rivers, the river and hence the dam came to be called
Mullaperiyar

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 History

The dam was built by the British Army Engineering corps. The first
dam was washed away by floods, and a second masonry dam was
constructed in 1895.

The structure was conceived by the British during the colonial rule to divert
the waters of the Periyar River eastwards through the construction of a
masonry dam, and taking the water from the reservoir through a tunnel cut
across the Western Ghats to the arid rain shadow regions of Theni,
Madurai, Sivagnga and Ramanathapuram Districts of Tamil Nadu.

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 Treaty

The Princely State of Travancore was forced to sign a treaty in 1886 in

this regard to lease the dam site for 999 years to the then Madras
government. The lease provided the British the rights over "all the
waters" of the Mullaperiyar and its cathment, for an annual rent of Rs.
40,000.

In May 1970, in what is now considered in Kerala as a "blunder"

committed by its leaders, the two States signed a formal agreement to
renew almost in toto the 1886 lease agreement, which had by then
become invalid.

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Dispute
By the early 1990s, the total irrigated area in the Periyar-Vaigai basin in Tamil
Nadu had been extended by 44,000 acres. This led to a quantum jump in the
amount of water required for irrigation, and a worsening of the water scarcity in
the four districts of Tamil Nadu .

The government of Tamil Nadu has proposed an increase in the storage level
of the dam from the currently maintained 136 feet to 142 feet so that more
water can be derived from the dam. The Kerala government has opposed this
move, citing safety concerns for the more than hundred year old bridge and
especially for the thickly populated districts downstream.

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 Current status

The dam and its surrounding areas are under the control of
the government of Tamil Nadu. The Supreme Court of India
has allowed for the storage level to be raised to 142 feet. A
recent law promulgated by the Kerala government against
increasing the storage level has been objected to by the
Supreme Court of India, which termed it as unconstitutional.

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Mullapperiyar: Issues of Dam Safety
1. The Mullapperiyar dam is one of the oldest dams in service in the World.
We are talking of safety of the 105-year-old dam when the average life span of
well designed and well built dams is generally considered to be about 50 to 60
years by International experts.

2. The safety issues relating to Mullapperiyar are heavily interlinked with the
safety of the dams of the Idukki project downstream. The fact that the failure
of the Mullapperiyar dam could lead to failure of the Idukki dam increases
the magnitude of the risk associated with the continued use of the
Mullapperiyar dam.

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Dam Failures
In the 20th century, around 200 notable dam failures have occurred in the
World, killing about 8000 people. It is notable that dam failures do occur in
developed countries too.

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The extent of the devastation that could result from failure of Idukki dam is
unimaginable. Idukki’s reservoir capacity is about 744000million cubic feet of
water with a weight of more than 2100 million tonnes. Mullaperiyar reservoir
capacity is about 444million cubic feet.
At height of about 2000 feet from mean sea level the energy content of this is
about

156,000,000,000,000,000 Joules

This is equivalent to 180 times the energy

released by the atom bomb which the
Americans used at Hiroshima.

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The flood water will be about 500 meters wide and 140 meters deep
in the initial state.
As it flows down, the width increases and when it reaches Cochin
which is at a distance of about 120 kilometers from Idukki it will be
about 7 kilometers wide. The flood water will rise up to a level of 4
meters at Cochin.
When it passes Thodupuzha (30mins. after the dam failure) the width
may be around 2 kilometers and the depth around 13 meters.
It is estimated that 23 lakh people will lose their lives.

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May God save us all…

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