The Hindu Business Line : US industry pitching for investment safeguards, post-nuclear accord

New Delhi, July 28 The US industry is eyeing the $150 billion Indian civilian nuclear sector on the back of the successful 123 agreement negotiations, but it is pitching for safeguards for its investment.

The Washington-based US-India Business Council (USIBC), a heavyweight lobby group comprising 250 of the largest US companies investing in India, wants both India and the US to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC). The Convention, among its provisions, places the onus of compensation in case of nuclear damage on the ‘Installation State’ (where the nuclear facilities are located), in this case India.

The Council, which led a high-powered nuclear mission that included GE, Westinghouse, PSEG Nuclear, Bechtel and United States Enrichment Corporation Inc to India in March this year, was upbeat about the progress on the bilateral negotiations.

“In parallel with the next steps leading to the induction of India into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, we urge both the US Congress and the Indian Parliament to address the issue of liability — by adopting the multilateral CSC, so US and Indian private sector companies can engage in India’s nuclear power build-out,” the President of USIBC, Mr Ron Somers, said in a statement.

India has announced plans to expand itsinstalled nuclear energy capacity from 4,120 MW to 63,000 MW by 2032. “Americans will be unable to reap the full benefit of this partnership without the US and India ratifying the CSC, which would provide a compensation mechanism against unforeseen liabilities…Without this mechanism, Americans would be put at a disadvantage in competition with public sector companies from France and Russia,” Mr Somers said.

The IAEA’s CSC, seen as a step forward in the international nuclear liability regime, embodied in the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage of 1963 and the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy of 1960, mandates the ‘Installation State’ to give 300 million SDRs (Special Drawing Rights, the unit of account defined by the International Monetary Fund) or a higher amount as compensation.

It also holds the operator of a nuclear installation liable for damage if adequately proven.

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