Sekhar Basu, Chief Executive, Nuclear Recycle Board of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, took over as Director of BARC from Ratan Kumar Sinha on Tuesday. Mr. Sinha became Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission on April 30, 2012.
Mr. Basu is one of the architects of India’s 80 MWt compact Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), which will power Arihant, the country’s nuclear-powered submarine.
An engineering graduate from the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, he joined the BARC Training School in 1974. He was absorbed in the Reactor Engineering Division of BARC and completed the development of fuel for Boiling Water Reactors. He then started pursuing BARC programmes in strategic areas.
Mr. Basu was shifted to Kalpakkam in 1988 and became the Director of BARC Facilities there. He was also the Project Director, Plutonium Recycling Project (PRP), at Kalpakkam, which built India’s first compact PWR. This shore-based reactor at Kalpakkam started operating from September 22, 2006. An exact replica of this has gone into Arihant, which was launched at Visakhapatnam on July 26, 2009.
He later became the Chief Executive, Nuclear Recycle Board, and built the reprocessing and waste management plants at Tarapur and Kalpakkam. A new reprocessing plant called Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant at Tarapur has been built under his guidance.
