Government of India is proceeding ahead with the various steps to enable the operationalisation of the nuclear co-operation agreements which will help the country achieve energy security. This will also help achieve reduction of green house gas emission. However anxious we may be, the progress in this will depend on the attitude of the other countries, particularly the USA, to proceed with speed to the operationalisation of the agreements. In this respect the USA seems to be a hesitant bridegroom. The government has announced more sites for nuclear power stations in a haste to meet the requirements; in this GOI seems to have landed in some internal political storms. Already we are in the midst of such political road blocks in respect of the uranium mining areas.

Further delay of Kudankulam plant...

Some times no news is said to be good news. But in respect of the Kudankulam Nuclear power project it does not seem to be so. This author tried to analyse logically the reasons for the delay (See IE February 2009) and hoped the first unit to become critical in August 2009 as declared by NPCIL. But recently NPCIL announced that commissioning is again postponed to September 2010. The reasons for the postponement of the commissioning date are not clear. According to announcements the fuel is already on the site more than a year back. Now it is almost 8 years since construction started. The construction period the world over for nuclear power stations is around 5 years. For our own indigenous PHWRs also NPCIL is able to bring to completion of plants in less than 5 years. The infrastructure is also reported to be ready. So presumably the delay may be due to delivery of components from the Russian side. If we go by the experience of Kudankulam project, even if everything is cleared, new Russian power stations (Kudankulam 3 and 4) would take around 8 years to materialize and that will take us to 2020s. But we are still nowhere near announcing the project initiation and time schedule for the third and fourth units at Kudankulam about which the last announcement promised that it will be initiated soon. In the absence of any information on the reasons for the delays it is not possible to assess the future progress.

Not much progress even in the French and Russian deals…

There is not much progress in initiating the setting up of additional Russian and French reactors and the time line for this is not known. For some reason this also seems to be dependent on implementation of the accord with the US. During the PM's visit to USA, except for summary announcement that both countries will work towards the operatonalisation of the deal at the earliest, there was nothing much on offer. The topic of the reprocessing of the imported fuel was not touched upon although there was great expectation that it would be taken up for discussion and agreement arrived at. As admitted by the prime minister, the details need to be worked out - "there are a few ‘i’s that have to be dotted and ‘t’s which have to be crossed," Whatever that means. We hope that the ‘t's are not the ones in 'NPT' or 'CTBT' or 'FMCT.’ That indicates perhaps the reason for the slow progress in proceeding with operationalising bilateral agreements not only with the US but also with the French and Russians which are in a relatively advanced stage.

In all probability we have to nervously look towards the NPT review conference slated for April 2010 and how India is going to face the pressure for signing the NPT which is what seems to be the condition for operationalisation of the agreements. If India has to sign the NPT, then the US-India and India-specific IAEA agreements do not have any relevance since under the NPT in its present form there cannot be a weapon state status for a NPT country. If India is not granted any special status under NPT, things may turn out to be back to Square One for India. It is reported that the PM will attend a nuclear summit in April 2010 in Washington in this context and we have to see what role US will allow India to play and how much we can bargain from the US. In pursuing the non- proliferation objective, US President Obama very well knows that US cannot ignore India and has to give importance to its geo-political status. And that is a factor which we can diplomatically exploit. On its part India has taken a step towards setting up independent facilities for reprocessing imported fuel under IAEA safeguards. Setting up of a Board for reprocessing has been announced to separate civilian nuclear reprocessing from BARC and plans are afoot to set up a large capacity reprocessing plant. The need for this was stressed by this author (See IE Sept 2007). Based on our experience with setting up reprocessing plants, this will take up to 10 years. The progress with the fast reactor programme would depend on the availability of plutonium from this to a large extent. Since this involves a quantum jump in the plant, capacity from the earlier prototypes, some amount of easing of import restrictions would speed up the setting up of reprocessing plants.

Shortage of isotopes…

The signing of CTBT was being considered by GOI but some rethinking is possible in view of the recent controversies about the status of our strategic capability. Being a signatory to the NPT as it stands today would not be acceptable. In case of CTBT, even the US is known to have some domestic reservations in ratifying it though it has signed the treaty and this factor would help. But the pressure for signing NPT in its present form without accepting India's nuclear weapon status has to be successfully withstood. It would be interesting to see how these intricate issues would be sorted out diplomatically by the government. Meanwhile in order to comply with the provisions of the US-India agreement, the first research reactor Apsara has already been shut down and the Cirus reactor is scheduled to be shut down in 2010. However, there is no assurance if the separation plan offered would alone be sufficient for operationalising the agreements.

The shutting down of the two research reactors would affect the availability of radio isotopes for medial applications with India depending only on the Dhruva reactor for the production of these. As it is, the shortage of isotopes for medical and industrial applications is keenly felt and it is met by imports. There is no clear cut plan on the horizon how the shortage in this area would be met by way of installing additional reactors for isotope production and make the country self- sufficient.

17 units of NPCIL operate at 40-50 per cent capacity

The separation plan and list of reactors which will be placed under safeguards have been handed over to IAEA and NPCIL has announced that the 220 MW indigenous RAPS-6 would be commissioned with imported fuel and under IAEA safeguards 300 tonnes of natural uranium imported from France is reported to be at the Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad under safeguards and is being used to fabricate fuel pins for loading into safeguarded PHWR reactors including the new units RAPS 5 and 6. The appended list to the IAEA infcirc 754 shows RAPS 5 and 6 as notified facilities to be covered by safeguards along with the fuel fabrication facilities required for the purpose. This will enable the loading of the imported fuel into these 2 units. India has volunteered to bring under safeguards 8 reactors in addition to the 6 (2 Kudankulam reactors, 2 Tarapur reactors, and RAPS 1 and 2 reactors) already under safeguards through plant specific agreements prior to the umbrella Indo-US agreement of 2006. But the annexure contains only two of the 8 PHWR reactors offered to be brought under safeguards by India. The other units which are contained in the list handed over by India are not yet included in the annexure to Infcirc 754. According to NPC the 6 units of 220 MW PHWR reactors at RAPS need 200 tonnes of fuel per year. So the supply received might ease a little the position of nuclear power production. The 17 units of NPC are stated to be running at 40 to 50 per cent capacity last year due to fuel shortage.

The target of 30,000 MW by 2030 is doubtful…

It is not clear why there is also no announcement still for the erection of further domestic NPPs of 750 MW as planned by DAE or clear cut plans for augmenting of nuclear power from indigenous resources. So contribution to further addition of nuclear electricity generation will also take us to beyond 2020s. In the light of the above analysis it is doubtful if the target of 30,000 MW by 2030 announced recently could be met particularly in the absence of a road map. We perhaps may have to wait for turning the corner in the next watershed in nuclear policies, the NPT review in April 2010 and clear the impediments for an accelerated growth of the nuclear sector.

Security of nuclear plants…

The internal security of the nuclear power plants is becoming a concern and is being tightened. It will continue to be a concern especially in view of two incidents - one at Kaiga about the tritiated heavy water contamination in drinking water and the other in the recent unexplained explosion and fire in a BARC laboratory. Both these are said to be under investigation but no conclusions seem to have been arrived at yet. It is gratifying to note that the implication from radiation safety point of view was not significant in the former case. The latter case did not involve any radioactivity. However, if such an incident had happened in a radiation area, it could have led to serious repercussions. As such both are matters of concern from the point of view of safety. No official statement has been made on the real reasons for either or on measures for preventing such incidents in the future.

The progress regarding the revamping of the archaic Atomic Energy Act is clouded in secrecy. But from the various announcements reported in the press regarding setting up of infrastructure for installation of nuclear power stations to be imported under the nuclear agreements, it is clear that the main issues of privatisation and liability are somewhat being circumvented (IE Dec. 2008). The agreements which NPCIL has arrived at with the various other PSUs (such as NTPC) tend to show that the privatization issue is not in the mind of the government right now except for private participation in GOI projects such as those with L&T, BHEL, etc. Even now for the installation of indigenous PHWR reactors, NPCIL has such partners as sub contractors. Now that the reactor operation and reprocessing are being separated for civil applications, in view of the impending vast expansion of the nuclear industry, many professionals feel the need for instituting a national body for consolidation, analysis and interpretation of radiation exposure dose data in the country including the precious unique data from our high background areas similar to such bodies in UK and USA. That would be in line with the status of the country in the nuclear field.