The Hindu Business Line : ‘Govt working on nuclear liability legislation’

New Delhi, Dec. 4 The Centre is planning to move expeditiously on the enactment of a nuclear liability legislation, the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Dr Anil Kakodkar, said here on Thursday.

Speaking at India Power Forum, Dr Kakodkar also said that the DAE was trying to ensure that global reactor vendors agree to increasing levels of localisation for reactor manufacture to bring down project costs for future Light Water Reactors on the anvil, in a bid to keep tariffs from new nuclear projects under check.

Need to move fast

“We have to move fast on the Liability Act…,” Dr Kakodkar said in his special address at the conference. Global reactor vendors, led by American reactor manufacturers including General Electric and Westinghouse, have been lobbying hard with the Indian Government to draft and ratify a domestic law consistent with the Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, in order to limit liabilities for the reactor vendors in case of an accident or mishap.

Dr Kakodkar also said the fuel shortages being faced by nuclear power stations in the country are likely to come down in the light of the civil nuclear cooperation agreements that India has entered into with several nations, which would enable access to uranium imports possible in the near future.

Capacity push

Currently, domestic nuclear stations, which have an installed capacity of 4,120 MWe (mega watt electrical), are running at around half their capacity due to shortage of uranium.

Dr Kakodkar said the country aims to generate 20,000 MWe of nuclear power by 2020, of which half of it would come from indigenously developed Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR).

“We aim to produce 10,000 MWe through PHWRs, about 5,000 MWe through imported reactors and about 2,500 MWe through Fast Breeder Reactors,” he said.

Private sector keen

Speaking at the event, the Power Secretary, Mr Anil Razdan, earlier said that private developers were still keen to invest in new thermal and hydro power projects, despite the financial crisis.

“At the moment, the enthusiasm among the private power developers has not died down...We’ve had a meeting with them and the response was encouraging,” he told reporters here.

Govt help

He said that the government had provided necessary support to developers at the time of crisis.

“Wherever help was needed, Petroleum Ministry, Coal Ministry, Railways and banks have turned out to help,” he added.

Several power project developers had complained that banks were displaying credit aversion to the infrastructure sector, driven by sectoral exposure, cost rise and lower than budgeted revenue flows.

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