THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Amid fresh momentum and fears of the Mullaperiyar issue engulfing Kerala, Water Resources Minister P J Joseph threatened to resign and go on a fast to buttress the concerns of the state.
“It is a question of the lives of 30 lakh people living downstream of Mullaperiyar.
As a public servant of the state, I am not able to sleep well now.
I am even ready to do away with my ministership as I cannot play any games with the lives of lakhs of people,” said an emotionally-charged Joseph.
Addressing a news conference here on Friday the Minister said that along with Revenue Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, he would meet the Prime Minister on November 28 to appraise him of the freshlyinduced grave situation at Mullaperiyar.
“I will continue my fight on the issue, even if my ministership goes”, he declared, though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tried to allay the fears of a delegation of Kerala MP’s in New Delhi on Friday and assured to speak to the Chief Ministers of both states.
“If it is a fasting agitation, let it be so.
I will stage any Gandhian mode of stir for a rethinking from the side of Tamil Nadu,” he said.
Making a valiant plea once again for the intervention of the national political parties in the issue, Joseph blasted the political parties such as the Congress, BJP and the CPM for adopting one stance here and another in Tamil Nadu and a totally different one at the Centre.
“A new dam is the the only solution.
And till then, the water-level should be brought down to 120ft, as demanded by the all-party meet here,” he said.
The Minister said that it was a foregone conclusion that the Mullaperiyar dam would not be able to withstand a tremor with a magnitude of six or above in the Richter scale.
The expert team of the Roorkee IIT had predicted that the seismic zone covering Mullaperiyar is prone to quakes up to 6.5 magnitude.
“The dam has been classified as unsafe after the Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) test recently, which detected huge cracks and the heavy drain of the limestone compound with which the dam has been built.
Anchoring conducted in 1979, while leaving the basement portion of the dam untouched, could not be considered effective from the stability point of view.
Even if it is otherwise for argument sake, the recurring tremors have changed the entire scenario.
After July 20 this year, 20 tremors have been recorded.
On November 18, the Richter scale magnitude of the tremor which hit the area was 3.5.
In the past, Kerala had experienced five tremors in Palakkad,” Joseph pointed out.
“The Centre, the Supreme Court and both states should apply their mind on this score,” he urged and reminded that 30 lakhs of people in the state who are under constant threat are also Indians citizens.
“The Supreme Court should permit the inclusion of Kerala Dam Safety Authority as a party in the Mullaperiyar case and allow to raise its points,” he said.
Joseph underscored that when a stretch of Kerala would be ravaged and lakhs of lives will be lost if the dam failed, Tamil Nadu will also become a big loser as agriculture in Theni, Madurai, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram would be hit in the absence of a dam in Mullaperiyar.
Moreover, in Vandiperiyar, which is going to be washed out at first, 30,000 people among the 70,000 population are Tamils.
There is a huge Tamil population in other areas of Idukki as well, he said.
On the stance of Kerala that it will follow the Mullaperiyar accord by all means, Joseph said that the immediate concern of the state was the safety of its people
