Kerala dam plan put on hold by Centre

The technical appraisal committee of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in its 96th meeting had okayed the proposal for the dam in the Attapady valley. However, a Tamil Nadu government release on Wednesday said that “the matter was examined in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and it has been decided to keep the recommendations of the expert appraisal committee in abeyance till the references filed in the Supreme Court against the order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal are settled or get a positive consent for the project from the Tamil Nadu government.”  Following moves by the Kerala government to put up an irrigation project in the Attapady valley in 2012, Chief Minister  Jayalalithaa wrote to the Centre in June the same year opposing the project.