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Chief Secretaries fail to reach understanding on Parambikulam

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The talks between Tamil Nadu and Kerala at the level of the Chief Secretaries for review of the Parambikulam-Aliyar Project (PAP) agreement ended on a positive note here on Friday though an understanding could not be reached on any of the issues.

The talks will be resumed in Chennai in the first week of August. “We have framed the issues and decided to discuss them further,” Kerala Chief Secretary P. J. Thomas told presspersons after the talks.

A number of suggestions had been made towards resolving the outstanding issues and officials would formulate proposals based on them for discussion in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy said.

Mr. Tripathy said his side had informed Kerala that it would be difficult to maintain full reservoir level at the Sholayar dam on September 1 and February 1, as stipulated in the agreement, owing to changes in climatic conditions.The Tamil Nadu side had also demanded that the State should be allowed to divert 2.5 thousand million cubic feet (tmc) of water annually from Anamalayar as provided in the agreement upon completion of the Idamalayar Project of Kerala. The power component of the Idamalayar project had been completed. The project should either be taken as completed or a time limit fixed for completion of the irrigation canals. It also wanted Neerar to be connected to Nallar and concreting of diversion canals to check seepages. Mr. Tripathy said that Tamil Nadu had been honouring the water sharing agreement by providing a total of 19.55 tmc feet of water a year at Sholayar and Manacadavu weir without fail. (Kerala accuses Tamil Nadu of not providing the stipulated quantity of water.)

Mr. Thomas said that Kerala had pressed for more water from Sholayar, in place of 12.3 tmc feet provided in the agreement and 4 tmc feet additionally through Manacadavu weir. The annual yield of water from the project should be reassessed and about 80 project buildings, in possession of Tamil Nadu, should be handed over to Kerala.

He said the talks were cordial. Besides the Chief Secretaries, Additional Chief Secretary of Kerala K. Jayakumar, Adviser to the Kerala Chief Minister on Inter-State Waters V.M. Valsalan, Chairman of Kerala State Electricity Board Rajeev Sadanandan, Adviser to Tamil Nadu on Inter-State Waters A. Mohanakrishnan, Secretary (Tamil Nadu Public Works) S. Audiseshaiah and Chairman of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board S. Machendranathan were among those who participated in the discussions.

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