New Delhi, Friday, July 31, 2009: In the behalf of central irrigation department secretary, a secretarial level discussion on the Mullaperiyar issue will be held here today.

The discussions come following special instruction from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Irrigation department secretaries from Kerala and Tamil Nadu will take part in the meeting.

K Jayakumar, Additional Chief Secretary and Water Resources Department Principal Secretary, Mullaperiyar special cell chairman MK Parameshwaran Nair, and Retd.chief engineer M Sashidharan will also take parting the meeting.

The Kerala assembly had last week passed unanimously a resolution demanding that the central government take the lead in resolving the Mullaperiyar dam issue, allowing the state government to construct a new dam and decommissioning the existing one.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been at loggerheads over the present Mullaperiyar dam built under an agreement signed in 1886 between the then maharaja of Travancore and the British administration. The agreement granted the then Madras Presidency the right to construct and maintain the dam and divert the water to irrigate arid lands in the Madurai region.