Mumbai: As voices of protest emerge days after the meeting between Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and a French delegation led by that country’s ambassador to India, Alexandre Ziegler, over the controversial 9,900-MW Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project (JNPP), State government sources said electricity will be purchased only if it is affordable.
Last week, following the meeting, the State government was informed that work on JNPP will finally begin in December 2018 and is likely to be completed by 2027. It was to begin six years ago. Mr. Fadnavis had been assured by the French delegation that the cost of electricity generated would be in lieu with Central government guidelines. Interestingly, a number of anti-nuclear activists have been claiming the power cost will be exorbitant, and may be ₹15 to ₹20 per unit or more.
A senior government official, who declined to be named, said the company has not given an estimate of the cost of per unit, and is yet to finalise the project cost. “We have clarified that the power has to be affordable for us, if it wants us to purchase it,” he said.
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Satyajit Chavan, convener, Jan Hakka Samiti, an umbrella body for anti-JNPP organisations, said, “We have been saying for months that French company EDF and India’s NPCIL have not inked any techno-commerical agreements. Neither the capital expenditure on this project nor the cost of per unit of electricity is available. How can a nuclear project of such mammoth capacity be built without finalising this and the liability cause?”. He alleged that EDF’s interest in being a part of the Make In India initiative was an attempt to reduce the total project.