Joe Joseph, a doctor who was the company-backed Twenty20 candidate in the recent Kothamangalam Kerala Assembly elections downstream of the Mullaperiyar and Idukki dams, moved the court along with two others last year on the grounds that the oversight committee had ceded its responsibilities to a subcommittee formed under the direction of the ImDamm Water Management Court. They also asked the court to ask the CWC to establish the “control curve”, the “instrumentation diagram” and the “gate operating plan” of the dam. Massive landslides had devastated hilly areas of central Kerala, and weather forecasts were threatening when the court was informed of a report by the United Nations University`s Institute of Water, Environment and Health, which named “significant structural deficiencies” in the dam and said it was “potentially threatened with failure.” “Leaks and leaching are also a concern as the methods and materials used during construction are considered obsolete by current building standards,” he said. Asked by Kerala for the construction of the new dam, the committee said that given the age of construction of the existing reservoir, a new one could be considered an alternative proposal. When the new dam is built, the maximum water level of this dam should be set at 155 feet and a new agreement should be signed between the two states on water sharing and maintenance. After independence in 1947, the Kerala government declared that the agreement previously signed between the British Raj and Travancore was invalid and needed to be renewed. The agreement was renewed in 1970 when C Achutha Menon was Prime Minister of Kerala, and as a result, the Government of Tamil Nadu operated the dam and paid it to the Government of Kerala for the past 50 years. Kerala pointed out the injustice in the 1886 lease and questioned its validity. However, the safety concerns of the 119-year-old dam for the safety of the people of Kerala in the event of a dam failure have been at the heart of disputes since 2009. Kerala`s proposal to close the dam and build a new one has been questioned by Tamil Nadu. In 1886, the then Maharaja of Travancore signed the “Periyar Lease Deed” with the British government, which considered the waters of Periyar useless to Travancore. He wanted to divert water to the dry regions of Tamil Nadu.

The Maharaja signed the agreement after 20 years of resistance. The dam was built in 1895. The Madras government began producing electricity from Hydel in 1959. Later, the capacity was increased to 140 MW. On October 29, 1886, a 999-year lease agreement was signed between the Maharaja of Travancore, Visakham Thirunal Rama Varma, and the British Secretary of State for India. The lease was signed by Dewan of Travancore V Ram Iyengar and Madras Secretary of State J C Hannington. This lease was concluded after 24 years of negotiations between the Maharaja and the British. The lease agreement granted the Secretary of State for India the full right, power and freedom to construct and export on the leased land and to use all such irrigation and other related works exclusively in construction, manufacture and execution.

The agreement gave 8,000 hectares of land for the reservoir and another 100 hectares for the construction of the dam. The tax for each morning was ₹5 per year. The lease granted the British rights to “all waters” of the Mullaperiyar and its watershed for an annual rent of ₹40,000. [29] With regard to the issue of the safety of the Mullaperiyar dam between the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court in its decision of October 7. May 2014, a 3-member supervisory committee chaired by the head of the CWC with the rank of Jt. Secretary of the Centre, the Additional Chief Secretary, WRD, Government of Kerala and Principal Secretary, PWD, Government of Tamil Nadu are the members of the Committee. In the production and maintenance of all irrigation works, the agreement gave 8000 hectares of land for the reservoir and another 100 hectares for the construction of the dam. Given that India is a federal democracy and rivers cross state borders, the establishment of effective and equitable mechanisms for the distribution of river flows has long been an important legal and constitutional issue. Many interstate conflicts over river water have erupted since independence, and one of them is the Mullaperiyar Dam problem. Mullaperiyar Dam is located on the Mullayar River and its tributary, the Periyar in the state of Kerala. It was built between 1887 and 1895 by the British government to divert water eastward to serve the farmers of the Madras Presidency, now known as Tamil Nadu.

It was known as the Periyar Dam because it was essentially intended to be the dam of the Periyar River. The current name of this dam is derived from a portmanteau of the Mullayar River and the Periyar River, so together it is called Mullaperiyar Dam. Mullaperiyar Dam is located at 881 m, which means 2,890 feet above mean sea level on the Western Ghats cardamom hills in Kerala`s Idukki district. Its height is 53.6 m (176 ft) and its length is 365.7 m (1,200 ft). There is also a national park known as Periyar National Park in Thekkady, which is located around the dam reservoir. That all changed when India gained independence in 1947. Nearly a decade later, Kerala became a state after which they declared the agreement null and void. The lease was not extended until 1970 with C Achutha Menon as Chief Minister of Kerala. For 50 years, Tamil Nadu has paid 2.5 lakhs per year to the Kerala government for land use and 7.5 lakhs as a supplement for the electricity produced.

Even today, the treaty between the two states is controversial. Although Kerala has said it does not want to break its commitments, Tamil Nadu has argued that the proposed new dam would call into question any existing water-sharing agreement. Since the dam conflict led to violent protests in both states until 2011, the dispute was no longer limited to the height of the water level. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, then deceased, Mr. Karunanidhi said that immediately after the Supreme Court announced its decision to set up a committee, she wrote to the congress president asking the center to mediate between Kerala and Tamil Nadu on the Mullaperiyar issue. [53] The leader of the opposition at the time, i.e. the late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J. .

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