Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Left came down heavily on the government for seeking to water down a key provision in the Nuclear Liability Bill that could hold foreign suppliers liable for damages in the event of an accident caused by their gross negligence, no minister or official was willing to offer an explanation for the change or even to confirm or deny that a decision to amend the draft had already been taken.
Pleading ignorance, highly placed South Block sources insisted “it is the government’s position that we want supplier liability to be there”. But they added that it was the Department of Atomic Energy and not the Ministry of External Affairs which was handling the file.
By evening, the DAE issued a curious press release which hinted that the bill’s provisions were still under consideration but did not deny reports that a change in the right of recourse section had already been decided. “It has been suggested in these reports that the government has conveyed to the committee its decisions to delete/modify certain provision of the draft legislation. The bill is now under consideration of the standing committee which is examining all aspects of the bill,” it said, adding: “The government’s role is limited and will continue to be restricted to providing inputs in response to queries put to it by the committee.”
Reacting to the report in The Hindu about the decision to delete Section 17(b) of the bill, Bharatiya Janata Party MP and spokesperson Prakash Javadekar on Thursday alleged that this was “almost direct evidence” that the Government was acting under pressure from the United States.
Slamming the government for softening the provisions of the nuclear liability bill instead of making them harsher and more rigorous, Mr. Javadekar said: “What the officials themselves were [earlier] pointing out as a safety clause in the bill which would bring in some measure of responsibility on the suppliers is now to be deleted altogether.”
Communist Party of India (CPI) MP D. Raja said the move showed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had learned nothing from the Bhopal fiasco. He accused the government of “shamelessly succumbing” to U.S. pressure and changing its policies “to please U.S. multinational companies”.
Since the Bill has already been tabled in Parliament, the deletion of Section 17(b) will have to be introduced as an amendment and voted on separately prior to the passage of the law. Any other amendments proposed by the government will also have to be introduced in this way. The Standing Committee is likely to make suggested amendments of its own which the government may then accept and incorporate or reject.
U.S. nuclear suppliers had conveyed to India their unhappiness with sections 17(b) and 46 of the draft bill. The latter provision, they fear, will expose them to criminal and tort proceedings in the event of an accident.
Keywords: Civil nuclear liability bill, Bhopal gas tragedy
I wonder how the government, can put such a price tag on the value of citizen's life in the country.Officials, for the sake of money, are selling the very lives of the people they are supposed to protect.
Some of the major contributions of the government have been in the past are inflation, Naxal attacks, laws that dilute and demean Indian culture, pseudo secularism, and now coming from the same stable - The Great Nuclear Bill, which subsidies the cost of operations for American companies. What a shame!
American corporations are answerable only to their shareholders, I don't think they even consider Indian people as stakeholders . They want Indian tax payers to be responsible for any costs arising out of an accident. We must put a stop to the culture of privatising profits and nationalising risks. This has gone on for way too long.
My suggetion to Us companies, you accept any stringent provision without any fear. In this country of "Lukkha's", "corrupts" & "shameless govt." you can escape easily & court will give their verdict as you want , like Bhopal tragedy.
Please come & "loot" the wealth of this country like Britishers had done.
Manmohan Singhji, you are free to waste tax payers money then from govt.pocket.
American companies are purely profit driven, but should the Government really forget its true priority and rather maintain itself as a subset of a larger chain of events along with China at the bottom of the smiley curve!!
India should have no business with those who have no respect for our laws. India shall not remain dumping ground for dirty American companies expecting exorbiant profiting by using cheap material, cheapest labour & negligible safety standards. When it comes to safety of our citizens there shall be zero compromise. India can well develop indegeous & safer technologies for power than Nuclear power.
It is a sheer hippocracy of the US policies that on the one hand Mr. Obama wants BP to pay each and every single penny for the damage oil spill has caused to the people and coastal region, he wants no such liability on the US firms their omission or commission cause a collateral damage to life in India. Does our lives have no worth? I'm certainly not with the Congress and Mr. Singh on dilution of 17(b). No matter how huge our needs for energy security are, any such deal should not be acceptable. I hope the parliament doesn't let the amended bill passes. We must learn lessons from Bhopal. I could have been one among those who died the other night or live rest of my life suffering with the defection, had the wind been blowing in the other direction that night!
India should not agree to any watered down version of a bill that will let the nuclear suppliers walk in the face of catastarophe. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP, the fourth largest entity in the world, and its inability to control and mitigate the disaster should be an eyeopener for all the nations in the world, not to trust these giant corporations. If anything the bill should incorporate tougher language and provisions toward criminal and tort proceedings against these entities, they make a profit, so let them take a fall in case of a disaster. Let us also remember the mess caused by union carbide in Madhya Pradesh and the now defunct Enron in Maharastra.
They want business, we want to be safe and develop. If they want profits, they should work according to our rules. And our leaders - please don't put your personal gains before the country. We voted for you not because you could sacrifice us and our rights to some big companies.
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