A British engineer who brought water and prosperity to a valley in Tamil Nadu

Colonel J. Pennycuick (1841-1911), the architect of the Mullaperiyar dam, has executed many long-lasting projects in India. . He is credited with having transformed the Cumbum Valley into a fertile belt, dotted with paddy fields, vegetables, flower gardens, coconut plantations and vineyards

During the British era, several irrigation engineers had executed long-lasting projects in India. Only a handful of them are remembered — and deified. Colonel J. Pennycuick (1841-1911), the architect of the Mullaperiyar dam, is one of them. He is credited with having transformed the Cumbum Valley into a fertile belt, dotted with paddy fields, vegetables, flower gardens, coconut plantations and vineyards. To this day, his dam meets the needs of the water-deficit districts of Theni, Dindigul, Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga.

People of the valley, especially farmers, are so grateful to Pennycuick that they make offerings to his portrait on his birth anniversary, which falls during the harvest festival of Pongal. However, it may be surprising to note that he was not the first choice when the British decided to dam the Periyar in the later part of the 19th Century. History of the Periyar Project, a publication authored by the Public Works Department’s Executive Engineer, A.T. Mackenzie (published in 1898 and republished in 1963), reveals that the idea of diverting the west-flowing Periyar into Madurai had existed for long, but “merely as an idea”. In 1850, work on a small dam and a channel began. But it was abandoned because of fever that spread among workers and the demand for “excessive wages”. The project was revived 12 years later by Major Ryves.

But there was “considerable criticism” of the proposal of Ryves, as noted by water expert and former Cauvery Technical Cell chairman A. Mohanakrishnan (1926-2017), in his seminal piece, History of the Periyar Dam with Century Long Performance, published by the Central Board of Irrigation and Power in February 1997. Around 1870, another engineer, R. Smith, took the project forward.

Though Smith’s proposals were initially approved, the then Chief Engineer in the PWD, General Walker, had objected to the method of “silting process” for raising the dam. The Hindu, in its report on October 14, 1895, published at the time of the commissioning of the dam, records that Smith submitted a modified scheme in 1872 and four years later, he and Pennycuick gave a joint report, accompanied by a separate report prepared by the latter, proposing a masonry dam instead of an earthen dam.

The Madras government had also referred the matter to the Central government, which concluded that the experience of engineers in India in the construction of irrigation structures “must far exceed” that of engineers in any other country. Meanwhile, a back-to-back severe famine hit the State in 1876-77, delaying the launch of the project. Perhaps, the authorities took so long to go ahead with the construction of the dam because the project was a trendsetter, envisaging the inter-basin transfer of water. Also, there was a view that except French engineers, others did not have any knowledge of large masonry dams.

Eventually, by an order of May 8, 1882, Pennycuick was entrusted with the task of revising the plans and estimates for the project. Thus began his total involvement in the project.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile Madras and Travancore governments struck a deal on the construction of the dam and signed an agreement on October 29, 1886. As part of the agreement which would be valid for 999 years, about 8,000 acres was leased out by Travancore to Madras for the Periyar dam project. The dam was built of lime and surki. Its cost was put at ₹84.71 lakh (towards capital expenditure), according to Mackenzie. The full reservoir level is 152 feet with a capacity of 10.56 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft). Nearly 70,000 hectares of land form part of the irrigation network.