Raising Mullaperiyar level catastrophic: Committee

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Thiruvananthapuram, June 5: The ecological impact of raising the water level at the Mullaperiyar dam beyond 136 ft will be catastrophic and all efforts to raise the level should be put on hold till a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is carried out, the National Expert Committee that looked into the ecological impact of water level increase in the dam said today.

''It will be imperative to carry out a detailed EIA as a statutory requirement to fully understand the ecological impact of raising the water level. Until the completion of the EIA studies and the social cost benefit study, the Committee recommends that all engineering efforts to raise the water level should be put on hold,'' Dr Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, Chairman of the Ecological Impact Assessment Committee, said.

The report was today handed over to State Irrigation Minister N K Premachandran.

Any increase in the water level would submerge a greater part of the grasslands of the Periyar Ecosystem. This could severely impair the food chain of the endangered tigers, whose prey base was deers depending on grasslands, Dr Ghosh said.

Strongly recommending adherence to Section nine of the Wildlife Act, he said, a decision regarding strengthening the dam or any construction would require the involvement of the Forest department.

The act clearly specified stopping or enhancing the flow of water into or outside a sanctuary should be reported to the Wildlife Warden and no such permit should be granted unless the State Government was satisfied. ''This is obligatory as the dam lies within a wildlife sanctuary, now part of a tiger reserve and elephant reserve,'' he added.

The Committee, which also looked into the social aspect, recommended that studies should be conducted on the state of distress in the minds of settlers, particularly children. The raising of the water level would displace a large number of families along with their economic activity. ''So the question of allowing additional water to Tamil Nadu will also have to be weighed against the lives and livelihood of these tribal people, since they will be forced to go back to the forest and start exploiting the ecosystem,'' he said.

The Committee also asked to set up a coordinating committee, headed by the Chief Minister, which would help in ensuring the ecological security of the natural resource system as well as protecting the life and livelihood of the people around the area.

Dr Ghosh is the Regional Chairman (South Asia), Commission on Ecosystem Management, IUCN. The members of the Committee were Dr H S A Yahya, Professor, Department of Wildlife Sciences, Aligarh University, and Mr Saroj Kumar Patnaik, former Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Orissa.

UNI

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