We are conversing about the matter of security of the 115-year-old dam. The mean life span of proper conceived and well constructed dams usually advise to be about 48 to 58 years by International experts. The topic is that the dam is established on a seismically perceptive locality, and even an average magnitude tremor can lead to disintegrate of the dam. If, any catastrophe hits, a lot of persons in four localities, Ernakulam, Kottayam, Idukki, and Alappuzha will be swab out.
The security matters pertaining to Mullapperiyar is remarkably powerfully interlinked with the security of the barriers of the Idukki project downstream. The grade of risk affiliated with a dam is a function of likelihood as well as penalties of dam failure. The detail that the malfunction of the Mullapperiyar dam could lead to malfunction of the Idukki dam raises the magnitude of the risk affiliated with the proceeded use of the Mullapperiyar dam. The likelihood of a dam malfunction counts on numerous components, for example, spillway capability, seismic opposition, environment of base, value of conceive and building, supervising and upkeep and an owner of human factors. Idukki has some feeble points in nearly all these respects.
The Supreme Court in 2006 directed that the dam should protect to boost the storage grade by six feet from 136 to 142 ft, but in a later ruling inquired the two States to resolve the dissimilarities through considerations in an amicable manner. Strong claims were aired by all the political parties in Tamil Nadu that Kerala should abide by the previous Supreme Court ruling about expanding the storage grade of the dam. The plea of the Kerala government all through was that lifting the storage grade of this dam would be a foremost security risk to inhabit and house of persons in three hugely densely populated localities of the State.
Given the dimensions of the Idukki, the span of the devastation that can be the outcome from malfunction of Idukki dam is unimaginable. Idukki’s reservoir capability is around 75000 million cubic foot of water with a force of more than 2100 million tones. The professional managing group set up by the regional agency to investigate the Mullapperiyar dam matters has asserted that malfunction of Idukki dams would direct to flood of more than three localities of Kerala. This presents a scary picture. The difficulty is aggregated by the detail that barely any up-to-date early warnings schemes. Crisis activity designs encompassing evacuation design lives in the region of both Mullapperiyar and Idukki. Evacuation of persons in the happening of a dam shatters from three highly populated localities is virtually impossible. Moreover, no dependable dam shatters inundation study is accessible to work out the zones to be evacuated.
Apart from upkeep, supervising is a significant facet of holding the dam safe. The agency Central Water Commission had proposed setting up of a decisive convention of gadgets to supervise the status of the dam. Even, Tamil Nadu did establish some devices, not measurements had been made accessible to Kerala. Though the Kerala Government proposed junction supervising, Tamil Nadu has not acquiesced to this. In detail, Tamil Nadu engineers have notified the mechanical managing group of Kerala that it had not been thriving in applying the essential instrumentation of the dam. There is evidently no instrumentation in the vintage piece of the dam. In the endorsing solid piece, constructed as part of the reinforcing works, uplift force units, damage meters and junction meters provided. These were said to have been established in 1984. However, Tamil Nadu has either not finished methodical supervising of the dam so far or is concealing the facts and numbers from Kerala. A vintage dam left without any supervising itself is a grave matter. Furthermore, no devices like, inclinometers, gauging weirs and extensometers are accessible at the location to check the foundation.
The difficulty with Mullapperiyar is that there is not another location for building of a new dam (unless Tamil Nadu or Kerala is arranged to assemble a broader dam downstream at a high cost). Disturbance of water provides is compelled to happen if the living dam is demolished and reconstructed. The managers should arrange the persons to precede lacking water for irrigation for few years, if no other options could be found. Kerala will not be giving water to Tamil Nadu at serious risk to its own population.