Palakkad, Tuesday 22 December 2009: An expert team headed by the chairman of the Mullaperiyar Special Cell M. K. Parameswaran Nair will visit the site proposed for the new dam at Mullaperiyar today for further studies on the suitability of the location for the dam.

The survey for the new dam is almost complete and the quality of the rocks at the proposed site will now have to be assessed. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre for Science and Technology has been entrusted the task of assessing the rock quality.

The team will include engineers from the Centre led by Dr. Gopala Krishnan. They are to drill boreholes in the rock later to determine the strength of the rocks.

The team will determine the locations for drilling the rocks. These would be mostly along the axis of the proposed dam, Parameswaran Nair said. (Axis of a dam is the reference line used during surveying. Commonly, the axis defines the location of the upstream portion of the crest of a dam.)

The Irrigation Department will have to put up a technically sound proposal if the concept of a new dam is to be accepted by the Centre and other agencies. This posed certain challenges as the parameters of the existing dam would also have to be taken into account.

The spillways of the dam may have to be fixed at 136 feet as in the case of the existing dam and the crest level at 155 feet. At the same time, the revised maximum probable flood in the catchment area will have to be factored into the design.

The new site is located about 1300 feet downstream of the existing dam. The State government had earlier obtained forest clearance for the survey from the Centre as the location falls within the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Undergrowth at some places has been cleared for the survey and studies on the feasibility of the dam.