Dams
The Vaigai Dam is built across the river near Andipatti, in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu. It provides water for irrigation for the Madurai district and the Dindigul district as well as drinking water to Madurai and Andipatti. Near the dam, the Government of Tamil Nadu has constructed an Agricultural Research Station for researching the growing of a variety of crops, including rice, sorghum, blackgram, cowpea and cotton.
The Periyar Dam was built in 1895 by John Pennycuick, who implemented a plan proposed over a century earlier by Pradani Muthirulappa Pillai of Ramnad. The dam was built by the British Army Engineering corps for the Travancore kingdom. The first dam was washed away by floods, and a second masonry dam was constructed in 1895.
"Greater than the mother bearing child/Greater than the child that is born/Every breath is Periyar/Every word is Periyar/In every place, in all the world/As far as Periyar water flows/Your name will stand-Pennycuick-your name/Though written on water, will always stand".
That is how Anthony Muthu Pillai (1863-1929) had paid tributes in Tamil to John Pennycuick, the engineer who had taken up the "audacious and unprecedented feat of...engineering" for transferring some water from the Periyar river in Travancore State to the Vaigai basin in Madras Presidency. This basin was described by Poet and lyricist Vairamuthu, who hails from this area: "It is a different world. Another planet on the surface of the earth. Ignored by the clouds, cursed by nature and dry land, passed by the Gods with their eyes tightly shut..."
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