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Anil Sasi

New Delhi, Oct 21 With the Indo-US nuclear deal seemingly off the radar, state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) is gearing up to fall back on the indigenous reactor programme. It is also stepping up domestic uranium fuel exploration efforts, to achieve its original target of an installed nuclear capacity of 20,000 MWe by 2020.

The failure of the nuclear deal could also signal a dead end for private companies wanting to enter the sector as they will not have access to fuel, Government officials said. The plan to set up large-size imported reactors at five coastal sites identified by the Centre could also be put on the backburner. “The prospect of getting a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group on the basis of commitments in the ‘123 Agreement’ with the US presented the opportunity to significantly scale up our nuclear programme by tapping global fuel sources and reactor technology. If the deal fails to go through, there is no option but to fall back on our ongoing indigenous programme, which was anyway supposed to run simultaneously,” a Government official involved in the exercise said.

According to officials, there have been indications of the presence of uranium in new sites across the country and these will have to be explored and the mining activity would have to be stepped up. “We have plans to double indigenous uranium availability during the Eleventh Plan,” an official said. “If the deal had come through, we could have scaled up our capacity to 40,000 MWe by 2020. If not, our indigenous effort would anyway continue and we have a target of 20,000 MWe by then.”

Of the coastal sites tentatively earmarked for setting up large sized projects, Jaitapur in Maharashtra is likely to be the only site where some activity is expected. According to officials, Jaitapur was identified even before the nuclear deal was kicked off .

“Some of these sites can always be used as part of the indigenous programme as a fallback option. But the reason for selecting coastal sites was mainly aimed at facilitating reactor and fuel imports, besides, of course, meeting the water requirements from the sea,” an official said. According to sources, some sites for future projects under the indigenous programme have already been tentatively identified in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh.

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