New Delhi, Nov 29 (IANS): Five union ministers from Kerala Tuesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Parliament House to raise the issue of safety of the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar masonry dam and seek a new dam.
Those who called on the prime minister were Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi, Food and Public Distribution Minister K.V. Thomas, Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullapally Ramachandran, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed and Minister of State for Power K.C. Venugopal.
The delegation urged the prime minister to persuade Kerala's neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu to give up its plans to increase the water level in the Mullaperiyar reservoir.
After the meeting, Vayalar Ravi told reporters that the prime minister assured the delegation he would look into the matter to help sort things out between the two states at the earliest.
"The prime minister heard us out and assured us that he would look into the issue," he said, adding that the central government is also working to settle the issue through a meeting between the chief ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, MPs from Kerala cutting across party lines held a demonstration outside Parliament House to press for their demand for building a new dam to replace the existing earthen structure.
As a counter move, four MPs from Tamil Nadu staged a protest, close to the spot where the Kerala MPs were holding their demonstration, demanding that the Supreme Court directive on raising the storage level of the dam to 142 feet be implemented.
Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala's Idukki district has been a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Kerala for years now.
Tamil Nadu plans to have the dam wall increased to 142 feet from the existing 136 feet, and Kerala wants it reduced to 120 feet, but has offered the construction of a new dam to meet the needs of its neighbouring state. However, Tamil Nadu is opposing the move, worried that it may lose control over the dam's functioning.
Concerns in Kerala stem from questions about the dam's ability to withstand high magnitude earthquakes and the possible impact of such natural disasters on the lives of over three million people in the state's Idukki, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Pathanamthitta districts.