The Supreme Court on Thursday said any “half-baked” arrangement will “destroy the dam” and refused to overhaul the court-formed Mullaperiyar dam supervisory committee, which will continue to oversee the safety and maintenance aspects of the 126-year-old structure until the new authority under the Dam Safety Act, 2021 becomes fully operational in a year.
A Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar will pronounce the order in open court on Friday while indicating that it will go ahead and increase the ambit and power of the supervisory committee. The court said it would add a Technical Member each from Kerala and Tamil Nadu to the panel.
The court, however, disagreed with Kerala’s suggestion to replace the Chairman of the supervisory committee, Gulshan Raj, a Chief Engineer with the Dam Safety Organisation, with the Chairman of the Central Water Commission (CWC).
