Zeenews Bureau
Chennai: The Supreme Court-appointed empowered committee on Mullaperiyar dam met on Wednesday to examine various technical reports on the safety of the 116-year-old structure.
According to reports, the Kerala government submitted a plea to the empowered committee seeking more time to submit its report.
The Oommen Chandy government of Kerala has asked for more time to conduct tests on the current status of the dam, saying that tests were still continuing on the Mullaperiyar Dam.
The empowered committee report will be finalised once tests on the Mullaperiyar Dam are over.
Kerala insists that until the tests were completed, it will be difficult to finalise a report.
The committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India AS Anand, and comprising five members, including representatives from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, is expected to recommend measures aimed at ending the decades-old dispute between the two states in its report to the Supreme Court.
The panel`s report will decide the fate of the 116-year-old dam, which has flared up tension again in recent days threatening to strain relations between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The panel could not complete its report during its two-day session last month and therefore, decided to meet again on February 15.
Kerala representative in the panel, K T Thomas, told reporters, “As the committee`s term ends on February 29, we want to complete the final report and submit to the Supreme Court before that."
The committee has assigned each member "a certain task" for the final preparation of the report. "The final report will be unanimous," Thomas assured.
During its previous meetings, the committee considered the reports of the studies and investigations conducted by various agencies it had constituted to go into the dam`s safety. It also discussed the report of the two technical members who inspected the dam after Kerala raised apprehensions about its safety following mild tremors in the area. The committee discussed the applications filed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu and took their submissions on record.
With Agency Inputs
