TN’s rights over Mullaperiyar

Seeking to assert Tamil Nadu's rights over Mullaperiyar dam, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Sunday said a special Assembly session would be convened on December 15 to pass a resolution that the state will not give up rights over it due to 'imaginary threats' on its safety and security. "A special Assembly session will be convened on December 15 at 11 AM to pass a resolution that this state will not give up our rights over Mullaperiyar because of the imaginary threat to the safety and security of the dam," she said in a statement. Jayalalithaa said her government believed the "solution to this problem lies in presenting sound technical and scientific data to the Supreme Court and convincing it about the justness of our stand." "With regard to the present issue, neither my people nor I and my government have got anything against the people of Kerala or their government. We have no quarrel with the people of Kerala." "Therefore, destroying their (Keralites' in Tamil Nadu) property or causing injury to them and in the process also causing ourselves pain and hardship is not a solution," she said. Urging the public to allow the government to handle the issue scientifically and logically and not get carried away emotionally, Jayalalithaa asked people of border areas not to precipitate the situation and to disperse immmediately. The two states have been at loggerheads over the issue for long. Tamil Nadu, which receives water from the dam in Kerala's Idukki district for irrigation in its southern districts, is opposed to any move to decommission the 116-year-old structure, saying it is safe. The Kerala Assembly had on Dec 9 unanimously adopted a resolution to build a new dam to replace the reservoir and lowering the water level to 120 feet in the existing structure over which the state and Tamil Nadu are locked in a dispute.