The Hindu : Front Page : India stands firm on clean NSG exemptions, says Kakodkar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 05, 2007
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India stands firm on clean NSG exemptions, says Kakodkar

T.S. Subramanian

“We will insist that there should be no post-conditions, no pre-conditions”

“We should be able to carry on without interference”
Self-sufficiency in technology cited

CHENNAI: Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar on Tuesday asserted that India should get “clean, unconditional exemptions” from guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). That is, if India were to buy light water reactors from the NSG member-countries under the 123 agreement with the United States.

He made it clear that India would insist that there should be “no post-conditions, no pre-conditions.”

He was speaking to reporters at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) at Kalpakkam, about 65 km from Chennai, after the graduation function of the first batch of scientific officers from the IGCAR Training School.

Asked about the repeated observations of U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns shifting the onus to India to get exemptions from the NSG guidelines, Dr. Kakodkar said: “Look at the July 18 Joint Statement. Read the July 18 Statement.”

(The July 18, 2005 Joint Statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush says that “…the United States will work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India…”).

When the question was repeated about Mr. Burns’ assertion that the Indians needed to convince the NSG for getting relaxation in guidelines, Dr. Kakodkar said, “You ask them [the Americans].” He, however, said India was also talking to the NSG members.

India’s interests

To another question, he said, “We have to look at India’s interests…We should be able to carry on without interference. So there is a non-hindrance clause” in the 123 agreement that there would be no interference with India’s domestic nuclear programme. India’s “first priority” was to use thorium for generation of nuclear power.

“If there is an additionality [by way of imported reactors] it is welcome. But there cannot be any interruption. So, it is possible to reprocess the spent fuel [from the imported reactors] under the agreement.”

Would India face a power crisis if the 123 agreement had not come through? “We are self-sufficient in our technology. Our nuclear power programme is moving extremely well,” he said.

On the possibility of the U.S. taking back the reactors and equipment if India were to conduct a nuclear test, he said there was a provision in the 123 agreement for uninterrupted operation of reactors.

“Temporary mismatch”

He attributed the fall in the capacity factor of the nuclear power reactors in India to “a temporary mismatch” in the demand for natural uranium and production. “It will be rectified. We had this mismatch because our nuclear power generation was doing well.” A new mill had been commissioned at Turamdih in Jharkhand for production of yellow-cake, which is fabricated into nuclear fuel bundles for the reactors.

A few days ago, the Government of India had approved the construction of a uranium mine and a mill for producing yellow-cake at Tummalapalle in Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh. “So the mismatch will be bridged,” he said. The capacity factor of the nuclear power reactors was around 50 to 60 per cent now.

Asked whether nuclear power was five times costlier then coal-fired electricity, Dr. Kakodkar sallied, “If something is so expensive, it will not be produced. You don’t manufacture a product which will not sell.”

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