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The political class will hotly debate over the coming days and weeks the strategic significance of the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s granting India a waiver from its export controls on nuclear material but there is no doubting that this decision will give a leg up to the country’s economic growth. In the immediate term, it paves the way for India to import natural uranium to feed the existing atomic power plants now operating well below capacity because of thin sup plies of domestic fuel. In time, substantial new capacities based on imported reactors and fuel can also come up as companies from countries such as France and Russia, not to speak of United States itself, are fairly keen to do business here. Not only does this mean for the economy a relief from the excruciating power shortage that now cripples most parts of the country, but also such rapid capacity creation will trigger demand for a range of products and services downstream.

While the latest development may not lead to a complete dismantling of the technology denial regime structured by the US, it is safe to say that there will be some loosening up, which is bound to have positive spin-offs in the economy. It is one thing to have an enabling environment for sharply scaling up nuclear power generation and another to create that capacity on the ground. The Government needs to shed its policy preference for a public sector monopoly in this field and throw it open for private participation. There might have been a case for keeping nuclear energy exclusively under the public sector when military and civilian facilities were inextricably linked to one another. Now the Government itself has accepted the principle of separation and even identified some of the existing facilities as exclusively in the civilian sphere in the context of its negotiations with the US. There is no reason why fresh investments conceived by the private sector, such as there are, should not be accorded the same privilege.

The private sector can bring in superior project management capabilities besides greater suavity in handling the external environment, especially local opposition that such projects invariably trigger. The private sector is also in a better position to negotiate the political risks in the project occasioned by a Government’s decision to test a nuclear device in the future. Of course, there is a case for ensuring there is sufficient competition among the private sector participants and the public sector incumbent; only under such pressure will the new atomic plants get built efficiently and the energy they generate be priced right. Again, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board should have its hands strengthened so that it can oversee the safe functioning of all reactors, especially those under private sector ownership and management.

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