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If quick progress were to be made in restarting work on the Kudankulam nuclear project, state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) is confident of commencing commercial operations at the first of the two 1,000 MWe reactor units ahead of the official estimate of May 2012.
The second unit, according to NPCIL's latest status report, is expected to start commercial operations only in February 2013.
On an official visit to Russia last week, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had announced that the Government will go ahead with the Russian-aided Rs 14,000-crore project and said that the first unit could be operationalised in a “couple of weeks”.
Agitation and delays
Government officials said the Centre is heavily banking on the Tamil Nadu Government's support to stop the public agitation against the project that has held up progress on the ground since mid-October.
Both the Russian ‘VVER 1000' units were initially slated to be commissioned during the current Plan period ending March, 2012. NPCIL, which was earlier planning to commission the first unit by December this year, has been forced to repeatedly push back the expected date of commencement of commercial operations in the wake of the continuing agitation at the site.
After the protests started, the deadline was pushed back to March 2012. This had recently been moved further ahead to May 2012, as there has been no breakthrough in the stalemate.
According to NPCIL officials, if pre-project activities were to restart in two weeks' time, the nuclear utility hopes to bring all the systems to their optimal levels in about a week and loading the real fuel to power the Kudankulam project's first unit by the first week of February.
Maintenance
As of November 2011, 99.2 per cent of physical works had been completed in the first unit and 94.6 per cent in the second unit. As the trial run – technically called hot run – of the first unit was completed, NPCIL said it was carrying out essential maintenance work so that the equipment do not fail or the reactor and pipelines do not rust due to stagnant coolant water.
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