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NT Bureau
Chennai, Jan 25:

        Tamilnadu government has conveyed to the Centre its decision to quit the talks with Kerala on Mullai Periyar issue.

        State PWD Minister Durai Murugan informed the House today while replying to a call attention motion brought by Congress members C Gnanasekaran and Peter Alphonse on the steps taken by Tamilnadu in Palar and Mullai Periyar issue. The Minister said, 'yesterday I had been to Delhi to hand over a letter written by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on the vexatious Mullai Periyar issue to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The letter purpoted to Tamilnadu's pulling out from the talks with Kerala.'

        The copy of the letter was also given to Union Water Resources Minister Saifudeen Soez, who chaired the talks held between the governments of Tamilnadu and Kerala on the direction of the Supreme Court.

        The Minister said that he had held discussions with the Supreme Court lawyers on approaching the apex court as there was no progress in the talks with Kerala.

        Even during the bilateral talks, Minister said, Kerala showed no interest in implementing the Supreme Court's direction on increasing the storage level of Periyar dam from 136 feet to 142 feet. On the other hand, they emphasised on constructing a new dam.

        In this connection, he referred to the expert committee's recommendation in 1979 which stated that there was no need for a new dam as demanded by Kerala government.

        On Kerala government's propaganda creating a fear psychosis among the public that the dam would breach and would affect them, the Minister said that the Supreme Court had clearly stated in its verdict that the dam was in good state and wouldn't breach. In the event of the dam getting breached, the 11 TMC of Periyar dam water would flow through the river and reach the Idukki dam that has a storage capacity of 55 TMC feet in downstream.

        Regarding the Palar issue, he said that Tamilnadu would approach the court if Andhra Pradesh went ahead with the construction of the proposed check dam across Palar river at Ganeshapuram near Kuppam.