The four decade old dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala on the Mullaperiyar Dam took a new turn on Thursday with the Tamil Nadu government banning the release of Dam 999.
The four decade old dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala on the Mullaperiyar Dam took a new turn on Thursday with the Tamil Nadu government banning the release of Dam 999, a Hollywood movie telling the story of the bursting of a dam and its consequences. Theatre owners in Tamil Nadu had declared on Wednesday that the movie would not be screened in the state.
"The Tamil Nadu government has banned the screening of movie Dam 999 with immediate effect," said a one-line statement issued by Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi. Interestingly, the movie has a galaxy of film technicians from Tamil cinemas. Thotta Tharini, the scenic designer who crafted the new Secretariat in Chennai in time for its inauguration by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2010 is the production designer of Dam 999 produced by Warner Brothers.
Srinivas Murali Mohan, another Tamil artist who shot into fame with his visual effects in Rajnikanth starrers Enthiran and Sivaji, the Boss directed the graphics while Anal Arassu, another familiar name in Tamil films composed the action sequences
All major political parties in Tamil Nadu argue that Dam 999 has been shot with Mullaperiyar Dam as its background. But Sohan Roy, a marine engineer –turned movie maker told DNA that the picture has nothing to do with Mullaperiyar. “Dams have interested me since my childhood days. The disaster caused by the bursting of the Banqiao Dam in China in 1975 in which 2,31, 000 died was the inspiration for this movie. I feel that dams, especially old dams are lethal bombs capable of causing mayhem and destruction,” said Roy. He said if people in Tamil Nadu feel it was shot with Mullaperiyar as the background, it is because they know that the bursting of the dam could cause the same kind of destruction,” he said.
The 116 year-old Mullaperiyar Dam, built on a stretch of land leased by the then princely state of Travancore to Madras Presidency in 1885 for 999 years has been a bone of contention between Kerala and Tamil Nadu since 1978. Kerala engineers argue that the dam, built in 1895 has out lived its utility and should have decommissioned in 1945.
The government of Kerala has been pressing for building a new dam downstream of the present dam which has a storage capacity of 15 TMC. The Mullapewriyar dam irrigates the water starved districts of Theni, Madurai, puthukottai, Ramanathapuram, Dindigul and Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu.
Though Kerala government has agreed to supply Tamil Nadu with the same quantity of water which they draw now, Tamil Nadu politicians are hell bent against the construction of a new dam. Mullaperiyar is vulnerable to earth quakes and experts of the Central Soil and Materials Research Station has found that the existing dam would not survive an earthquake of magnitude four in the Richter scale. More than 22 tremors of magnitude lesser than four were recorded in Mullaperiyar and surrounding areas since January this year.
“Nobody in Tamil Nadu has seen this movie which is slated for release on Friday. Probably they want to keep the people ignorant about ground realities,” said Roy who also directed an award winning documentary “Dams The Lethal Weapons”.
According to this documentary, four districts of Kerala including Kochi, the Queen of Arabian Sea, would be wiped out from the face of the earth in the eventuality of Mullaperiyar bursting.
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