Civil Nuclear Liability Bill: Efforts on to introduce it before PM's US visit

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will again try to convince the Opposition to support the contentious Civil Nuclear Liability Bill with the intent to introduce it in the second half of the Budget session (April-May).

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) told Business Standard that National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon will meet top leaders of the BJP and the CPI(M) to explain the salient features of the Bill.

Although Menon had made efforts to convince the BJP top brass to support the Bill, the saffron brigade decided to join hands with the opposition parties, including the Left. The government, on Monday, sensing the possibility of being outnumbered in the motion, decided not to table the bill in the Lok Sabha.

Menon held a special session for top spokespersons of the Congress today to brief them on the features of the Bill. Although the PMO is keen to see the bill passed before the prime minister’s visit to US in mid-April, UPA managers told Business Standard that the chances are bleak.

They feel the bill has to be first referred to the standing committee on energy headed by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav — a known baiter of the Bill — before it can come up for voting in early 2011. It is expected that the Congress would gain lost ground in the Upper House by the year end and the government would not have any problem in passing the bill. Currently, the UPA is in a minority in the Rajya Sabha. However, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat alleged the Bill was a direct outcome of the commitment made by the UPA government to the US for purchasing 10,000 Mw of nuclear reactors from the country.

“Only the US is asking for civil liability legislation prior to commercial sale of nuclear reactors while Russia and France are not pressing for such conditions,” Karat said. Arguing that the Rs 500 crore cap of liability for the operator is “too little”, Karat said, “It is not being done to serve the government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India but to protect the US firms that may come up.”