CHENNAI: Within a few hours of receiving a letter from her Kerala counterpart Oommen Chandy on the Mullaiperiyar dam issue, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa responded to it by asking him to guard against unfounded fears and honour the Supreme Court verdict to increase the storage level of the dam to 142 feet.“While my government and I would always seek to protect the safety and security of every Indian, we should also guard against unfounded fears overtaking reason and ground realities. Informed decision making at the government level should be based on reason rather than on extraneous factors,” Jayalalithaa said in her reply to Chandy’s letter.Dismissing the contention of Oommen Chandy that there have been 22 tremors in the last four months near the dam site, Jayalalithaa said as per the Indian Meteorological Department data, there have only been four mild tremors in the last four months, that too far away from the vicinity of the Mullaiperiyar dam site, which did not have any effect on the seepage in the dam. “The seepage of the dam is well within the permissible limits as per the Indian Standards Code. The possibility of tremors of even medium magnitude does not exist in the dam site. The possibility of the Mullaiperiyar dam breaching due to flood waters and collapsing is not logical since all eventualities have been factored in during the strengthening of the dam done between 1980 and 1994 and after all these measures, the retrofitted Mullaiperiyar dam is as good as new,” Jayalalithaa observed.Under the aegis of the Empowered Committee appointed by the Supreme Court, a series of studies/tests, such as scanning the upstream face of the dam, testing the cable anchors and non-destructive tests, have been conducted and some are in progress. “Recently, my government sanctioned `1.38 crore for the core sample test alone,” she said.
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