{"id":18370,"date":"2026-08-07T12:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T06:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=18370"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:52:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:22:03","slug":"mullaperiyar-dam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/mullaperiyar-dam\/","title":{"rendered":"Mullaperiyar Dam"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Mullaperiyar Dam Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Kerala government strongly protested Tamil Nadu&#8217;s recent budget announcement on raising the water level in the Mullaperiyar dam.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Mullaperiyar Dam<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a<\/span><b> masonry gravity dam<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> located in Thekkady, Idukki district, <\/span><b>Kerala<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dam is built at the <\/span><b>confluence of the Mullayar and Periyar <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(longest river in Kerala) rivers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is located at an altitude of 881 m on the <\/span><b>Cardamom Hills <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/western-ghats\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Western Ghats.<\/b><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>one of the oldest <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dams in India. Its <\/span><b>construction <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">began in 1887 and was <\/span><b>completed in 1895.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The construction was carried out by the<\/span><b> British Corps of Royal Engineers under<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the leadership of <\/span><b>Pennycuick<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dam\u2019s primary function is to<\/span><b> transfer water from the Periyar River to the Vaigai River basin in Tamil Nadu<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for irrigation and power generation purposes.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The water from the reservoir reaches the Theni, Madurai, Sivaganga, and Ramanathapuram districts of Tamil Nadu<\/span><b> through tunnels<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that cut <\/span><b>across the Western Ghats.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dam also <\/span><b>generates electricity for Tamil Nadu<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> through four hydroelectric power plants: Lower Periyar, Periyar Dam, Periyar Power House, and Vaigai.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dam was <\/span><b>constructed with limestone and \u201cSurkhi\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (burnt brick powder and a mixture of sugar and calcium oxide).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has a height of 53.6 meters, a length of 365.7 meters, and a storage capacity of 443 million cubic meters.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>created an artificial lake and reservoir t<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hat covers an area of 8.5 sq.km.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>surrounded by the Periyar National Park,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a renowned biodiversity hotspot that is home to numerous endangered species of animals and birds.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although the<\/span><b> dam <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><b> located in Kerala<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it is <\/span><b>operated and maintained by Tamil Nadu.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">according to a <\/span><b>999-year lease agreement made during British rule<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that the operational rights were handed over to Tamil Nadu.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In recent years, there has been a <\/span><b>long-standing dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over the safety<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the dam.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Kerala <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has been<\/span><b> demanding <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that the <\/span><b>dam be strengthened or decommissioned, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">while Tamil Nadu has opposed any such move.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/dailypioneer.com\/news\/kerala-gov-protests-tns-budget-announcement-on-raising\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>DP<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mullaperiyar Dam is a masonry gravity dam located in Thekkady, Idukki district, Kerala. Read more about Mullaperiyar Dam, State, River, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":48335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9344,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-18370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-mullaperiyar-dam","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18370"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117787,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370\/revisions\/117787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}