TECHNOLOGY-INDIA: Sanctions Threaten Nuclear Safety

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, Jul 17 1998 (IPS) - Decades of denying India nuclear technology has pushed the country to pursue an indigenous but secretive programme which poses the threat of a Chernobyl-type disaster, experts say.

Because India does not accept full-scope international safeguards for its nuclear activities, it has been denied access to technology or equipment from western countries that follow rules set by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Last month when Russia broke the embargo to sign a deal supplying two light-water reactors for a 2,000 MW nuclear power station in southern Tamil Nadu state, it was the first time in two decades that foreign technology was to enter the country.

However, the reactors do not come with the safety control and instrumentation systems designed by the German engineering giant Siemens which has set up a plant in Moscow especially for the Russian nuclear equipment industry.

Public safety is no more enhanced by the fact that India does not have a truly independent organisation to oversee safety and regulation of its civilian nuclear installations as required by the International Convention on Nuclear Safety.

The nearest thing India has is the ineffective Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which is completely subservient to the overarching Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) — violating the Convention to which India became a signatory in 1994.

According to the convention, nuclear regulatory agencies must be effectively separated from organisations involved in the promotion and utilisation of nuclear energy, says former AERB chairman, A. Gopalakrishnan.

“What is urgently required is legislation covering all aspects of public and worker safety and the creation of a truly independent atomic energy regulatory authority,” Gopalakrishnan said.

Before retiring two years ago Gopalakrishnan suggested that the new authority make all data and information relating to the safety of nuclear installations and activities publicly available in the interest of promoting accountability and public safety, Gopalakrishnan said.

As things stand, the AEC routinely invokes the Official Secrets Act, dating back to colonial rule, to suppress information on incidents that have occurred at its installation located at numerous installations around the country.

Most of India’s nuclear installations are located in thinly populated rural areas where people are too impoverished and ignorant to protest and glad for any incidental infrastructural development that may come their way.

Villagers who live around the 460 MW Narora Atomic Power Plant, 350 kms east of here, are yet to get electricity in their homes. Most of them were oblivious to dangers from the plant which recorded a massive fire three years ago necessitating its shut down.

After India exploded a peaceful nuclear device in 1974, it was placed under various technology transfer regimes by the West. But that only stimulated India to develop its own nuclear power technology and safety standards.

“The denial of technology only spurred us to develop our own programme – we are perfectly capable of handling our own reactors,” says R. Chidambaram, chairman of the AEC.

Though crippled by lack of international support in terms of technology and funds, India plans to produce have 20,000 MW of nuclear power by the year 2020, on its own steam.

But western suspicions that India’s secretive nuclear power programme has a military component were confirmed in May when it suddenly carried out a series of nuclear tests and announced to the world that it had “fully weaponised.”

The May tests resulted, predictably, in further tightening of technology control regimes against India and this week Chidambaram joined the ranks of top Indian scientists denied visas to the United States as a consequence.

Chidambaram said the U.S action would not affect India’s indigenous nuclear programme, but admitted it would hamper the free exchange of ideas among scientists.

With India refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the isolation can only be expected to grow and along with it dangers to public safety.

Last week, delegates at a national conference on health and environment organised by the leading non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), demanded introduction of consultative mechanisms to go into the safety status of nuclear installations.

“Government should consider involving NGOs and non-DAE Expert groups in carrying out evaluation relating to public safety independently,” said Anil Agarwal, CSE chief.

Delegates expressed concern at the increased incidence of cancer and deformities observed in the villages neighbouring the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station and demanded independent study by an expert national team.

The conference recommended that the public’s right to information be made paramount and intrinsic to approvals for nuclear energy projects.