Engineer who built Mullaperiyar Dam honoured by Tamil Nadu government

John Pennycuick is almost a household name in several parts of Southern Tamil Nadu for he oversaw the construction of the now century-old Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala’s Idukki district.

It is a lifeline for lakhs of farmers in Theni, Dindigul, Ramanathapuram, Madurai, and Sivaganga districts of Tamil Nadu whose survival depends on the water released from the dam.

The Tamil Nadu government, to honour the British engineer’s services to the people of the southern part of the state, has installed a statue of John Pennycuick in his birthplace, Camberley, in the UK.

The statue, sponsored by the state government, was to be unveiled on September 10 at a public park in Camberley but the event was postponed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Pennycuick is quite popular in the five districts that utilise water released from the dam for irrigation and drinking purposes and have high regard for the British engineer who lived in Madurai as part of his job. Pennycuick, a British national, entered the East India Company Military College in 1857 and graduated as a lieutenant in the Madras Engineering Group in 1858.

Under his leadership, the work on the construction of Mullaperiyar Dam began in 1887 and was completed in 1895. The dam has a height of 176 feet from the foundation and is near the Periyar National Park in Kerala. Though it is located in Kerala, the dam is maintained by the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department.

Water released from the dam is used for irrigation of 2.23 lakh acres in five districts.

To recognise Pennycuick’s contribution to Tamil Nadu, the state government had last year decided to unveil a statue in his hometown. Though the statue has been installed, it could not be unveiled as planned. A delegation led by Cooperatives Minister I Periyasamy returned from the UK on Monday as the event got cancelled.

BBC reported last week that in a paper titled The Diversion of the Periyar written in 1897, Pennycuick says that the idea of building a dam had been mooted much earlier.

"The first recorded expression of it dates from the beginning of the present century, when surveys were made for the purpose of ascertaining how far the proposal was a practical one," BBC quoted him as saying.