'India's track record in nuclear sector impeccable'

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent meeting with the opponents of the 2,000-Mw Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu was aimed at allaying their fears. At the same time, it also sent a positive message to the global nuclear sector that India was committed to pursue capacity addition without compromising on safety and security.

Officials at the Department of Atomic Energy and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPC), along with nuclear scientists, said what was at stake was not just the investment of Rs 14,000 crore made so far in the project, but also India’s emergence as an attractive global nuclear destination for investments of over $150 billion.

M R Srinivasan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who sniffed at a gathering of non-government organisations from countries like Germany, France and the US, and also some religious organisations to oppose the Kudankulam project, told Business Standard: “This is clearly a campaign against India, in particular, which has attracted the world’s attention for proposed nuclear capacity addition. This is also to run down the Russian VVER-1,000 reactors which are deployed in the Kudankulam project.”

He further said during his tenure as the AEC chairman, a lot of negotiations took place with the erstwhile Soviet Union to the supply of the VVER-1,000 reactors for Kudankulam and a lot of safety features have been added which includes passive cooling system and passive hydrogen recombiners to handle extreme events including earthquake and tsunami.

NPC Chairman and Managing Director S K Jain said India had an impeccable track record on safety of operating 20 nuclear power plants with a generation capacity of 4,780 Mw. “The nuclear community is highly demotivated due to the recent opposition for the Kudankulam project the commissioning of its first phase is expected soon. Safety has been of paramount importance and it will continue to remain in upcoming capacity addition.”

Besides, he said, Indian industries are globally recognised for exporting key components in the nuclear sector. “Such opposition will also hamper the nuclear trade and also send adverse signal.”

Jain said India was exploring all options of exporting small reactors to third world countries. However, this exercise might be impacted adversely if work at the Kudankulam project was stopped or the project is scrapped, he cautioned. “How can other countries believe in our nuclear technology when the local people are raising doubts over it?”

The NPC official said safety review on setting up the Kudankulam project was carried out by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board over and above the regulatory review for these reactors in the Russian Federation. The design of Kudankulam reactors also incorporates features such as core catcher, Hydrogen management system to mitigate severe accident scenario as witnessed in Fukushima, Japan.

M K Kotwal, president of L&T (heavy engineering) downplayed the agitation against the Kudankulam project and said nuclear safety and clean power were the need of the hour.

G Balachandran, consulting fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses, said: “Sites for nuclear power project are cleared by AERB. Incidentally, NPC has shared information on environment impact assessment for various sites including Kudankulam and Jaitapur (Maharashtra). NPC also needs to share information of all other sites — for existing and proposed projects — for public use. Otherwise, NPC and AERB will be charged with being secretive.”