NPC ignores protest, begins rehaul of Tarapur-1

Undeterred by warnings and ultimatums from local units of various political parties and non-government organisations, the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) has begun, from yesterday, the planned outage for Unit-1 (160 Mw) of the Tarapur atomic power station (in adjoining Thane district).

The outage, which would go on for 20 days, is an annual feature, required to replace the used fuel with new one. As reported earlier, NPC had threatened to simply close Tarapur units 1 & 2 if they were not allowed to go ahead with the programme. Political units were annoyed with NPC for not hiring locals on a daily-wage basis for the planned outages. They'd also objected to NPC’s decision to bring in a contractor for such outages since 2002 and reducing the time to 20 days from the earlier two months. The plant’s director, R K Gargye, told Business Standard: “NPC cannot make any compromise on safety and security of plant. Initially, Unit-1 would undergo planned outage and thereafter Unit-2 (also) of 160 Mw. These two units provide power mainly to Maharashtra and Gujarat, at 93 paise per unit.” Gargye said that annual maintenance of these units was necessary.

They have a 30-year life and have been in operation for 41 year. “We want to run these units, which are boiling water reactors procured from the US, for another 15 years,” he said.