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Unit 5 and Unit 6 of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district are scheduled to be completed in 66 and 75 months, respectively, said Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension, and Prime Minister’s Office.
The minister was replying to queries raised to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Rajya Sabha member from Tamil Nadu, P Wilson, on the status of the ongoing construction works of KNPP.
To a query on whether the entire power generated in Kudankulam nuclear plant will be given to the home State which is short of coal, the minister said the power generated by the Kudankulam units will be allocated by the Union Ministry of Power, in accordance with the prevailing policy.
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The employment generated in these two reactors, through contractors, is about 250, which will increase to about 6,000 as the construction progresses. In addition, there would be more employment generation through business opportunities resulting from the increased economic activity, the minister said.
Safety aspects
Highest priority is accorded to safety in all aspects of nuclear power — design, construction, commissioning and operation. Nuclear power plants are designed by adopting safety principles of redundancy, diversity and provided with fail-safe design features following a defence-in-depth approach. This ensures that there are multiple barriers between the source of radioactivity and the environment. The operations are performed adopting well laid-out procedures by highly qualified, trained and licensed personnel, he replied to another query on safety of nuclear power plants in the country.
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Construction of the 2,000-MW (2X1,000) units 5 and 6 commenced in June and is to be completed at an outlay of ₹49,621 crore.
KNPP comprises six units of light water reactors with a capacity of 1,000 MW each set up in technical cooperation with the Russian Federation. Its unit 1 and unit 2 are in operation, while units 3 and 4 are under construction and currently have reached about 50 per cent progress, according to recent media reports.
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