If you search for Power House Waterfalls near Munnar you will find Kerala Tourism’s page for it, and Kerala Tourism’s page is describing a different waterfall from the one its name belongs to. This is not a small discrepancy about a viewpoint fifty metres away. The two places are twenty-one kilometres apart by road, on opposite sides of Munnar, reached by different highways.

The state’s pages — there are two of them, destination 210 and destination 773 — say the falls is about eighteen kilometres from Munnar, that it stands two thousand metres above sea level, that it originates from Sita Devi Lake in Devikulam, that it lies on the route from Munnar to Thekkady, and that it is also known as Chinnakanal Waterfall. The Malayalam version says the same and adds that it is seven kilometres from Chinnakanal to Anayirankal.

Every measurable claim points east

So we measured them, against both candidates, on the same day and with the same tools.

Distance. The Chinnakanal falls is 17.5 km from Munnar town by road — the state’s "about 18 km". The waterfall this page is about is 15.0 km from Munnar, in the opposite direction, towards Adimali and the coast.

Elevation. The Chinnakanal falls sits at 1,638 m. This one sits at 796 m. Neither is two thousand metres, but one of them is more than eight hundred metres closer to the claim than the other.

Water source. Sita Devi Lake at Devikulam is at 1,769 m. It is 973 m above this pin and on the far side of the watershed; no water from it has ever come over these rocks. It is on the Chinnakanal side.

And the name points west

Which raises the obvious question: why does Roampedia file this record here rather than at Chinnakanal? The western site is locally mapped under this name, while Kerala Tourism’s measurable distance, elevation and road-context clues describe the eastern roadside cascade.

The big eastern cascade is separately mapped under the Chinnakanal and Periyakanal names, fifty-eight metres apart on the same rock face.

And the reason the name sits here is standing 836 metres up the bank: the Pallivasal power station, the first hydroelectric plant Kerala ever built. The panchayat ward here is called Powerhouse on the electoral map. The ponds two hundred metres north are mapped "Power House Bhagam". The state creche is the "Power House Ankanavadi". A nickname that has colonised an entire village is not a nickname that migrated eleven kilometres.

The confusion is live in the reviews

You can watch it happening. On Google’s record for this pin, one long review begins "While travelling from Munnar to Thekkady, we stopped at the beautiful Power House Waterfalls, located near Chinnakanal village… conveniently situated right beside the main road." That is the eastern falls, accurately described, filed under the western one. Two reviews down, another visitor writes "The place is near pallivasal power station… The approach road to this place is very steep and narrow." That is this one, also accurate. A third review on the same record is about a care centre that serves free rice porridge in the mornings and concerns neither waterfall.

Which one do you want?
  • THE QUIET ONE (this page): 15.0 km west of Munnar, 796 m, off SH59 below Chithirapuram, down about a kilometre of steep narrow lane.
  • THE ROADSIDE ONE: 17.5 km east of Munnar on the Thekkady road, 1,638 m, a lay-by on the highway near Periyakanal.
  • THEY ARE 21.0 km APART by road. Establish which one your driver means before you leave.