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Decommissioning dams in India:

a comparative assessment of
Mullaperiyar and other cases
Arnab Roy Chowdhury
Published online: 18 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Arnab Roy Chowdhury (2013) Decommissioning dams in India: a comparative
assessment of Mullaperiyar and other cases, Development in Practice, 23:2, 292-298, DOI:
10.1080/09614524.2013.772563

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 Development in Practice, 2013
Vol. 23, No. 2, 292– 298, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2013.772563

VIEWPOINT

Decommissioning dams in India:

a comparative assessment of
Mullaperiyar and other cases
Downloaded by [NUS National University of Singapore] at 20:38 13 September 2013

Arnab Roy Chowdhury

With the ruefully anticipated breakdown of the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala as the central issue,
this article debates the decommissioning of large dams in India. Drawing on other examples of
dam breakdown and decommissioning cases from India and the USA, the author argues that
dams that have failed to deliver on their promises or are in an unsafe condition should be selec-
tively decommissioned.

Démantèlement de barrages en Inde : évaluation comparative de Mullaperiyar et d’autres cas

En prenant comme prétexte le démantèlement prévu, à regret, du barrage de Mullaperiyar dans
le Kerala, cet article discute du démantèlement des grands barrages en Inde. En s’inspirant
d’autres exemples de cas de pannes et de démantèlement de barrages en Inde et aux États-
Unis, l’auteur soutient que les barrages qui n’ont pas tenu leurs promesses ou qui sont en
état précaire devraient être démantelés sélectivement.

El desmantelamiento de represas en India: una evaluación comparativa de Mullaperiyar y de

otros casos
Utilizando como pretexto la averı́a de la represa Mullaperiyar en Kerala, el presente artı́culo
analiza el desmantelamiento de las grandes represas de India. Apoyándose en ejemplos de
averı́as y desmantelamiento de represas localizadas en India y en Estados Unidos, el autor
propone que aquellas represas que no hayan cumplido con las expectativas que se tenı́an
de ellas o que se encuentren en condiciones que generen inseguridad sean desmanteladas
de manera selectiva.

Desativando barragens na Índia: uma avaliação comparativa de Mullaperiyar e outros casos

Diante do rompimento, tristemente previsto, da barragem de Mullaperiyar em Kerala, este
artigo debate a desativação de grandes barragens na Índia. Baseando-se em outros exemplos
de rompimento e desativação de barragens da Índia e dos EUA, o autor argumenta que as bar-
ragens que têm falhado em implementar aquilo a que se propõe ou estão em condições inse-
guras, devem ser seletivamente desativadas.

KEY WORDS : Governance and public policy; Social sector – Water and sanitation; South Asia

292 # 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Decommissioning dams in India: a comparative assessment of Mullaperiyar and other cases

Introduction
On 14 August 2007, a historic event took place in the Kerala assembly that had great signifi-
cance in provoking the debate surrounding decommissioning large dams in India. On that
date, the Kerala assembly mooted new legislation – the Kerala Irrigation and Water Conserva-
tion Act 2003 – which renders power to the state to decommission a dam if it is found unsafe, by
draining the water stored in it. This law makes the entire surface water within the boundary of
the state its property. The law has also provisions for participatory water management by invol-
ving the farming communities and has created the Kerala Dam Safety Authority (KDSA), which
has the power to act promptly in case any impending threat occurs to the dam structure (Special
Correspondent 2003). Though the law reflects a state-centric bias by declaring all surface water
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bodies to be property of the state, considering the provisions that it entails, it is generally a pro-
gressive, as well as a timely and eco-sensitive law.
However, this law failed to generate any debate or praise within civil society; there was also
no discussion of it in academic journals, where it was largely ignored. A slight digression: in
2010 the Dam Safety Bill was also introduced by the Government of India at the national
level, though it is yet to get the mandate of law. This bill is separate from the Kerala Irrigation
and Water Conservation Act 2003, which is a state level law. However, the national Dam Safety
Bill is also related to the Mullaperiyar and other dam conflicts in India. I will return to this
towards the end of this paper.
Part of the reason that Kerala introduced this relatively progressive law was to gain control of
the Mullaperiyar Dam, which is situated within the borders of Kerala but operated by Tamil
Nadu because of a 999-year lease agreement between the British colonial government and
Tamil Nadu. While this law was in effect, Tamil Nadu pressed on with the decision of increas-
ing the height of the 108-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam in the Idukki district of Kerala to 152 feet,
from its original height of 136 feet. An earlier decision to decrease the dam to a height of 136
feet was taken after the threat to the lime and mortar structure of this dam was noted (The Hindu,
15 August 2003).
The issue did not get much public attention on the national scale until recently, when the
spectre of Mullaperiyar dam re-emerged in a rather alarming manner. On 18 November
2011, small cracks appeared in at least three places of the dam reservoir due to seismic
tremors measuring 2.8 and 3.4 on the Richter scale (Singh, Raghavan, and Raju 1992; Patkar
et al. 2011).1
Thus the debate of decommissioning large dams emerged again in the public domain, as the
cracks in Mullaperiyar threaten the lives of around 3.5 million people residing in four districts
of Kerala, who are now stranded in the middle of a chaotic situation. They are in a panic and
have left their houses to go to surrounding districts, and are seeking shelter with nearby kith
and kin, as the rising water touches the spillway mark of 136 feet. Many of them have also
taken to the streets in protest. Members of Parliament in Kerala, irrespective of their parties,
are demanding the construction of a new dam structure to replace the dilapidated one. In
middle of this grand fiasco, the Hollywood movie Dam999 was released in the state of
Kerala; it presents the story of the breakdown of Banqiao Dam in China in 1975, which
killed 250,000 people, in a rather dramatically depicted saga. It has been banned in Tamil Nadu.
The Mullaperiyar dam was commissioned in 1895 by the British government, and was to
have a maximum life of 50 years. It has already “lived” as long as 116 years with its fragile
lime and mortar structure, on which cracks appeared as early as 1979, due to an earthquake.
The dam site lies on the vulnerable seismic zone – III of the country: this means that the occur-
rence of any earthquake measuring more than five or six on the Richter scale will demolish the
dam holding 445 million cubic metres of water, and will wreak massive destruction on the lives

Development in Practice, Volume 23, Number 2, April 2013 293

 Arnab Roy Chowdhury

of the downstream populations. In this particular case at least, though not in many others, the
proclamation of Arundhati Roy might be proven right, as she reminded us that “big dams are
like big bombs” – though there are obvious differences between the two (Quoted in Omvedt
1999).

Revisiting a forgotten debate

Dams have been imbued with the metaphors and imagination of the Indian nation-state. From
the Nehruvian era, dams have been associated with the religiosity of being temples of modern
India, and Nehru reminded us of the sacrifices that have to be made for that (Banerjee 2008).
Dams have also been promoted as renewable, clean, and pollution-free sources of energy and
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hydropower projects have been endorsed as multi-purpose projects. The focus on Multi-
Purpose River Valley Development through construction of large dams and reservoirs was a
policy that was adopted in 1940s colonial India. During this phase the Mahanadi Valley and
Damodar Valley projects were constructed. The Damodar River Valley project was influenced
by the global model of multi-purpose projects initiated by the Tennessee Valley Authority in
USA, which constructed a series of dams on the Tennessee River in the 1930s.
These dams were architectural landmarks and symbols of confidence and national pride in
India (D’Souza 2012). Similarly, in China, the Three Gorges Dam was viewed as one of the
greatest technological and engineering accomplishments in Chinese history. This benefit was
perhaps more important for dam proponents than the supposed benefits provided after the
dam was built, such as flood protection and power generation.
These projects heralded the rising confidence of the decolonised nation state and were seen to
contribute to its goal of economic modernity and development. In the initial years of nation-
building (and later, too) dams stood out as a cheap source of energy for the heavy industrial-
sector development in India. Irrigation from hydropower projects such as Bhakra in Punjab
was also crucial in the green revolution phase. Problems started cropping up as the construction
of these dams caused massive human displacement and environmental damage.
Dam construction became a site of foreign capital investment from 1980s onwards, as the
World Bank started funding projects such as the Sardar Sarovar Project in India. Later the
bank was forced to revoke the fund in the face of rising protests organised by the Save
Narmada Movement. In India the state-owned enterprise of National Hydroelectric Power Cor-
poration still undertakes a large number of large dam projects. Most of these projects are con-
structed to supply electricity to the industry, but also to some extent for agriculture and public
consumption. Banks such as Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, Credit Commercial de France,
HSBC, and the Nordic Investment Bank, have financed many of these projects in India (IRN
2005).
While the Indian developmental state has emerged through the years as one of the fastest and
ever growing dam builders in the world, comparable to countries such as Brazil and China, it
has also seen the largest and most famous of the movements against large dams in ever
rising numbers, particularly in the sub-national state of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and in
the North-Eastern region of India. The current trend of dam building in India is antithetical
to decommissioning of old dams, as it continues to follow the similar paradigm of building
large mega-dams to take the nation further along the path of progress and development. More-
over, dismantling the mega-dams is likened to destroying the temples of modern India. Conse-
quently it is a contentious and volatile issue.
The first major plan for restructuring dams, the Sardar Sarovar project, was put forward by
Suhas Parajapye and K. J. Joy (1995) against the backdrop of Narmada Bachao Andolan and
their struggle. The plan proposed many changes including the lowering of the height of the

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 Decommissioning dams in India: a comparative assessment of Mullaperiyar and other cases

dam to 107 metres, storing the water in decentralised small feeder reservoir structures, and a
plan to generate biomass from that water. The plan was brilliant, but it never took off, due to
various political reasons; lack of state/political will and civil society disunity were also respon-
sible. This was one of the first serious and thoughtful attempts to decommission large dams in
India, because decommissioning does not always mean the full removal of a dam: a partial
restructuring can also achieve the same goal of sustainability. However, while construction
of large dams may be questionable, in drought-stricken regions such as the Southern Maharash-
tra, proper irrigation would not have been possible without these large dams (Omvedt 1999).
India has a long history and many cases of dam failure, illustrated here by a few instances of
such failures. In 1958, the Kaddam dam in Andhra Pradesh broke down. The Kaila dam in
Gujarat collapsed due to weak foundation in 1959. The Kodanagar dam in Tamil Nadu failed
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because of an earthquake, where breaches of lengths from 20 to 200 metres appeared on its
structure. A more famous case was of the Panchset dam on the river Mutha in Maharashtra,
which broke down in 1961. The Kahadakwasla dam was blown up to alleviate the effect of
the Panchset breakdown, which ultimately flooded Poona, causing an immense loss of property
there (Brahme 1967). Luckily, not many lives were lost; still, many families continue to await
proper rehabilitation and compensation for property loss, which has been completely over-
looked even as both the dams have been rebuilt in the successive years by the Maharshtra
state government. It was long after that incident in 1980 that the Maharshtra State Dam
Safety Organization was created, and it took another 20 years for the Indian state to come up
with a Dam Safety Bill on a national scale – this was only introduced in 2010.
Still, Mullaperiyar and Panchset are known cases, situated in the very political geographic
centre of the country. The Dumbur dam project on river Gumti in Tripura is a lesser-known
example that illustrates an advantage of dam decommissioning in India. It is situated far
away in the North-Eastern region of the country, the periphery of the nation. The Dumbur
dam project was constructed in 1976 in the tribal heartland of Tripura, which accelerated the
process of land-alienation of the ancestral population residing there (Bhaumick 2003, 84). In
2007, the dam reservoir faced a severe drop in water level due to siltation, and some of the
underwater land re-emerged. Immediately the people whose land had been lost – mostly
groups who were initially displaced in the process of construction of this project – started gath-
ering around the place to reclaim their land. The left-leaning government in Tripura, however,
did not allow anybody to resettle on this land. Consequently, there has been discussion about
decommissioning this dam, which has not been very productive, to settle some 30,000 local
families in 45km2 of reclaimed land. This act of decommissioning, if properly done, could
also partly alleviate the ethnic tension that has emerged between the local communities and
the former refugee migrant Bengalis. The latter have mostly been the beneficiaries of state
power and development (Hussain 2008, 31).

Decommissioning large dams in the USA

Ironically, the USA, pioneer of multi-purpose river valley development, is reviewing its policy
of dam making. In the last two decades, the USA and, to some extent, Europe have been the
pioneers in the process of dam removal. Public safety and environmental concerns are the
most common reasons for dam removal. An additional primary reason for dam removal in
USA has been that these projects no longer serve the purpose for which they were constructed.
In 1999 the idea of decommissioning large dams received a fresh impetus after years of preced-
ing debates, chiefly among environmentalists in the USA. In the same year, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) was denied a renewed license for a hydroelectric project. On
the contrary, the FERC was directed to remove a small hydroelectric project, the Edward dam

Development in Practice, Volume 23, Number 2, April 2013 295

 Arnab Roy Chowdhury

on Kennebec River in Augusta Maine (Manahan and Verville 2005, 45). The Edward dam was
built in 1837 to promote industrial development and was removed in 1999 because the quality of
the river water had worsened through municipal sewerage that reduced the biodiversity, mainly
the fish population, in the river. The restoration of these fisheries was the main reason behind the
removal of this dam (Crane 2009).
According to American Rivers, an NGO in the USA, around 888 dams were dismantled prior to
2010, of which 250 were removed since 1999. It has immensely benefitted the local communities
and revitalised the health of the rivers, their fishes, and other wildlife. In many cases it has
enhanced economic benefits for the communities settled around those rivers (American Rivers
2010). Dams which have been out of use and are expensive to maintain have been fully decom-
missioned. However, it should be remembered that decommissioning large dams does not always
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mean dismantling the full structure of the dam. It can mean the partial removal of existing or
associated services. It is mainly done to ensure public safety, fish passage, river restoration,
and various other public or owner benefits, along with solving economic problems. In some
cases a partial breach in the dam structure is enough to ensure these. The partial breach can
include the removal of spillway, thus reducing the height of a reservoir and in that way reducing
the hydraulic load on a dam. For example, Musser’s Pennsylvania dam was partially breached in
1992. The Columbia Falls dam project in Maine, built over the Pleasant River, was partially dis-
mantled in 1990, and eventually fully dismantled in 1998 (Manahan and Verville 2005).
However, the act of dam removal should not be perceived as an opposite process of dam con-
struction, because some of the chemical, hydrological, and ecological changes that have taken
place post-construction can never be reversed, though many of the processes can be. The
decommissioning of a dam is a long process which involves steps such as: making a conceptual
design, development of accord among the stakeholders, preliminary design, cost of the removal,
permission of the appropriate authority, the act of removal, and post-removal monitoring of the
project. In terms of expenses, dam removal usually costs far less than the restoration of a dilapi-
dated and old dam structure. A set of 30 case studies in Wisconsin, USA, shows that the
expenses are around one third of the price of renovating old dams (Born et al. 1998), though
it can sometimes be greater.
In the USA, dams come under the jurisdiction of the states, each of which has statutory defi-
nitions of dams that are fixed. Activist organisations and NGOs have cleverly agitated for
changes in the structure of the projects so that they no longer meet the statutory definition of
dam and thus the states can no longer have jurisdiction over the projects. Although this kind
of strategic activism has elicited a favourable response, it is understandably difficult to
imagine this working with the Indian state, as it has been under the sway of neoliberal and
global capital since the 1990s, still derives a large amount of surplus from agriculture, needs
to feed a large population, and aspires to maintain a high and steady level of economic
growth. Besides, there are too many political players and conflicting interests to produce any
sort of unanimous decision. Furthermore, surrounded by bellicose neighbours, India has under-
gone immense militarisation in the postcolonial era. In this same vein, Padel and Das (2010)
aptly remind us of the nefarious association of large dams with the aluminium industry,
which has high value in developing warfare technologies for various nation states.
However, things may change in India in the near future. As recently as 2010 the Indian state
drafted a Dam Safety Bill on the national scale, which is yet to be passed into law. This Dam
Safety Bill proposes to oversee dam safety evaluation, risk assessment, and risk management.
However, the state of Tamil Nadu has already shown its displeasure over certain sections
of the bill, which they think is detrimental to the interests of the state. Section 26(I) of the
bill explicitly states that “all specific dams should fall under the jurisdiction of state where
the dam is situated and that of the non-state Dam Safety Organisation”. This means that

296 Development in Practice, Volume 23, Number 2, April 2013

 Decommissioning dams in India: a comparative assessment of Mullaperiyar and other cases

Mullaperiyar, which is operated by Tamil Nadu, but is situated within the territory of Kerala,
can be decommissioned with the consent of the state of Kerala or the central government of
India alone (NDTV 2012).

Conclusion
Any mention of decommissioning large dams in India is anathema and therefore there is a dearth
of literature and systematic research in this area. Still, this paper should not be considered a war
cry proffering an anti-dam stance. Rather, dams should neither be considered as viciously bad, nor
be understood as a panacea for development and growth. These polemics create an unmanageable
fault line between state and civil society, which could work together on certain issues, even as
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they maintain their differences and autonomy in many others. This creates non-cooperation
among the civil society groups that could potentially form ties of solidarity based on particular
issues against the state and the private dam building nexus. There is a need to realise that each
dam has a socio-economic, political, historical, and geographical context within which it is
built. Dams may indeed be necessary for drought-stricken farming populations that have not
received much water from rainwater harvesting or watershed programmes. Even a place like Rale-
gaon Siddhi, a model village, sources its water from outside to meet its needs. The demand for the
construction of some kind of water storage can also come from the agricultural communities
themselves, as was the case in Maharashtra villages where, in many cases, the cultivating com-
munities constructed small dams for themselves; for example, the case of the Baliraja Memorial
dam (Omvedt 2000). We cannot decommission the dams all at once until we have solid bases for
other renewable energies, and we do not need to destroy all of them.
A thorough Social and Environmental Impact Assessment, as well as a review of public
security aspects of all large dams in India, is desirable. In the case of a failure to fulfil one
of these requisite parameters that a dam building project should entail, then there may be
strong reasons to consider dismantling these projects. Dams that have become old and unpro-
ductive for various reasons, such as siltation, can be selectively dismantled, renovated, and/
or restructured either completely or partially. Decommissioning large dams should be
project-specific, and should be considered on a case-by-case basis, after assessing each
project completely. The motivation to construct large numbers of large dams comes chiefly
from the emphasis on the economic aspects over social and ecological concerns, but it is
now well known that economic growth does not automatically entail socio-ecological
welfare (Jhunjhunwala 2010). It is high time that the Indian state consider moving in the direc-
tion of selectively identifying and dismantling those dams that are unproductive, as it embraces,
in policy, the global paradigm of sustainable development. The state should realise that the
ethos of sustainable development does not endorse a linear narrative of rapid and blind pro-
gression; rather, this concept sensitises us to the thought that sometimes taking a step backward
can actually be a giant leap forward.

Note
1. Idukki region, where the dam is located, is an earthquake prone area. The first major earthquake
occurred here in 1988 (Singh et al. 1992).

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The author
Arnab Roy Chowdhury is pursuing his PhD in sociology from the National University of Singapore
(NUS), Singapore. His doctoral research pertains to a comparative study of subalternity and dam evictees’
movements in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. ,arnab.roy2007@gmail.com.

298 Development in Practice, Volume 23, Number 2, April 2013