Supreme Court directs Disaster Management sub-committee of Mullaperiyar Dam to consider reducing water level up to 139 feet

The bench also directed that the affected and displaced people be given adequate relief immediately.

The Supreme Court today directed the Disaster Management sub-committee of Mullaperiyar Dam to consider reducing water level up to 139 feet from the present 142 feet, considering the "grave" flood situation in all the 14 districts of Kerala.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Indu Malhotra took a serious note of the grim flood situation in Kerala and asked the sub-committee to hold an urgent meeting tomorrow morning with the Centre's National Crisis Management Committee (NCMS) and the Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu and Kerala through a video-conference if physical presence of officials cannot be ensured.

"An effort has to be made to bring down the water level of the Mullaperiyar dam to 139 ft so that the people living downstream should not live in constant fear," the bench said.

However, Tamil Nadu government opposed the plea with regard to bringing down the water level in the dam, saying that the inflow of water presently is over 12,000 cusec in contrast to the outflow of 5,000 cusec.

The bench said this was not the time to go into the past and efforts to be made to deal with the present crisis and posted the matter for further hearing at 2 PM tomorrow.

The bench also directed that the affected and displaced people be given adequate relief immediately.

It also directed the committee and the NCMS to come out with a disaster management plan and asked Tamil Nadu and Kerala governments to implement with the decisions of the panel.

The Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General P S Narasimha, informed the court that the NCMS had a meeting today and all possible reliefs are being sent to the flood-affected people of Kerala.