India Tested H-Bomb On May 11

India has the hydrogen bomb and the missile delivery system required to use it, scientific advisor to the defence ministry Abdul Kalam and Atomic Energy Commission secretary R Chidambaram said at a press conference here yesterday.

Putting at rest western speculation that India had tested a boosted fission device, Chidambaram said it was a hydrogen bomb which had been tested on May 11. We used a fission trigger and a secondary fusion device. A boosted fission device does not have a secondary stage, he said. India is a nuclear weapons state under clause nine of the NPT, Kalam asserted. However, he declined to reveal the nature of the fissile fuel used in the five tests on May 11 and May 13 .

Our weaponisation is complete, said Kalam, adding that the command and control structure, which has been existing in different forms, would now be consolidated. Reacting to the US sanctions, he said the Indian programme could not be throttled by sanctions as it was 100 per cent self-reliant.

Chidambaram and Kalam told the packed press conference that Shakti-98 the official name for the tests was a joint endeavour of the Department of Atomic Energy and DRDO which began years ago, though the tests were conducted within 30 days of getting the green signal from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

They said the hydrogen bomb packed an explosive power of 45 kilotonnes. A video clip of the thermonuclear explosion screened at the conference showed the ground within 50 km of the blast rising, before settling down in a dusty haze.

Kalam said, The tests have provided critical data for the validation of our capability in the design of nuclear weapons of different yields for different delivery systems.

Kalam also announced that ballistic missiles can be mass-produced by India.

If needed, Agni can be made in numbers. The government has given approval for the next version of Agni and this is in an advanced stage of development, he said.

However, he declined to state when the missiles would be test-fired or nuclear-tipped. Our missiles are designed to take any type of warhead. We have tested the size, weight, performance and vibrations. We have been doing that for quite some time.

The new version of Agni will have a range of about 2000-2500 km.

The present version, which has been test fired thrice from the interim test range at Chandipur-On-Sea in Orissa, has a range of 1,500 km and can carry a 1,000 kg warhead.

Kalam said the advanced version of the two-stage Agni could be powered by any combination of solid and liquid fuels depending on requirements.

Kalam also revealed that the fission device (the conventional nuclear bomb) had yielded 15 KT and the respective yields of the three sub-kiloton devices were between 0.2 and 0.5 KT.

The mission also saw the testing of a new design of a fission bomb, smaller in size and weight and higher in yield than the one tested at Pokhran in 1974.

On the cost of the tests, Kalam said it was a low-cost affair, with the expenditure shared by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the DAE out of their budgetary resources.

Yesterdays press conference was also addressed by joint mission directors, K Santanam of DRDO and Anil Kakodkar, director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, where the fuel fabrication and explosive designing took place.