TN Govt appoints Minister to coordinate on Mullaperiyar issue

The Tamil Nadu Government today appointed Minister for Higher Education K Ponmudi to coordinate with legal experts and deal with Mullaperiyar and other inter-state water disputes.

Chief Secretary K S Sripathy, in a release here said Mr Ponmudi, on the advise of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, would co-ordinate with senior counsel and legal experts and draw strategies to deal with Mullaperiyar and other issues.

The Minister, besides taking decisions on these issues, would keep in touch with the Centre, Kerala and other concerned States, the Chief Secretary said.

Mr Karunanidhi was dealing with Mullaperiyar and other inter-state water disputes, after taking over the Public Works Department(PWD) from Duraimurugan early this year.

Mr Ponmudi's appointment comes close on the heels of Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan constituting a five-Judge Constitution Bench to hear the suit filed by Tamil Nadu agianst Kerala on the Mullaperiyar dam issue.

Tamil Nadu, in the suit, had questioned Kerala Government's law to prevent raising the water level in the Mullaperiyar dam to 142 ft against the existing 136 ft allowed by the Supreme Court judgment in its verdict in February 2006.

The constitution bench, comprising Justices D K Jain, B Sudershan Reddy, Mukundakam Sharma, R M Lodha and Deepak Verma will have the first sitting tomorrow to finalise the modalities of hearing and to fix the schedule. Besides Kerala, Tamil Nadu is having problem with Karnataka on the Cauvery water dispute and Andhra Pradesh on Palar issue.

-- (UNI) -- 22MS21.xml

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