Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
stirred a hornets' nest over the already
contentious US$3 billion Kudankulam nuclear power
plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu with
accusations that American and Scandinavian
non-governmental organizations were the
instigators of protests against the Russian-aided
project. In an interview last week with
Science, an American journal, Singh stated that
India’s atomic energy program "has got into
difficulties because these NGOs mostly, I think,
based in the US, don't appreciate the development
challenges that our country faces."
The
insinuation that certain foreign bodies were
trying to derail India’s plans to augment its
energy output created an immediate
backlash, with the
anti-nuclear lobby demanding Singh to either
"prove his charges or step down". People's
Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) - which
has been opposing the 2,000 MW power station since
its inception in 1988 - threatened to sue the
Prime Minister's Office for linking the protests
to US foreign funding. The rightist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) opposition quickly leveraged
the issue to put the ruling United Progressive
Alliance on the defensive.
"It's a very
important statement that the PM has made," BJP
senior leader Arun Jaitley said. "The government
must make facts in regard to this public so that
the veracity of it is known to the people of India
and they are in a position to define what is
correct," he said.
Reactions from abroad
were also quick to pour in. Russia’s ambassador to
Delhi, Alexander Kadakin, said that Moscow had
cottoned onto the protests long ago. "We have been
suspecting this all along. I was open to even
saying this because it was very strange that six
months after the Fukushima tragedy, all of a
sudden those protesters raised their voice ...
against the most secure and the world's best
station."
Kadakin's remarks contrasted
with caution from United States Charge d'Affaires
A Peter Burleigh, who said he would have to find
out the "facts" before commenting on Singh's
remarks.
As the episode quickly threatened
to grow into a crisis, the government issued a
statement clarifying that it had enough evidence
to prove that foreign funds received by local NGOs
were misdirected to keep the anti-Kudankulam
protests alive and provide local agitators daily
handouts of money, food and liquor. The government
charged that the protesters had misused donations
received under the Foreign Contribution Regulation
Act for purposes of stated objectives such as
health and education. PMANE, however, has denied
the allegations, saying it had not bribed the
protestors.
With the brouhaha showing no
signs of abating, experts opine that the fresh
controversy will likely derail the beleaguered
plant operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India
Ltd's (NPCL's) plans to bring the project to
fruition by the extended deadline of March 2012.
Ironically, though the Kudankulam plant is
expected to banish the power woes of an
energy-starved Tamil Nadu, it has been bedeviled
by trouble since its inception. Flagged off in
1988 through an inter-governmental agreement
signed by erstwhile Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi and
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, it remained in
limbo for a decade due to the political and
economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991
Soviet breakup. The United States also opposed the
project on the grounds that the agreement did not
comply with terms mentioned in the Nuclear
Suppliers Group.
Construction eventually
began on the plant in 1997 and progress was made
on it under different state governments in Tamil
Nadu. However, last year, the PMANE upped the ante
following the Fukushima disaster, which sparked
off fresh protests across the state. Activists and
local villagers opposed the project's
implementation saying it was "not safe". They
contended that the nuclear plant could meet with
the fate of Fukushima power plant in Japan in the
aftermath of the tsunami that ravaged the country
last year.
A public interest litigation
was also filed against the government’s civil
nuclear program at the Supreme Court. The move
specifically asked for the "staying of all
proposed nuclear power plants till satisfactory
safety measures and cost-benefit analyses are
completed by independent agencies".
At the
time, Singh had to step in to assure Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister J Jayalalitha that "all precautions
would be taken at the Kudankulam nuclear plant to
maintain the highest safety standards". Racing
against time to make the plant operation by March
this year, the government had undertaken an
aggressive campaign to allay the fears of the
protesters. A governmental panel was also
constituted to survey the safety features in the
plant. It reported that the Kudankulam reactors
are "the safest and fears of the people are
unfounded".
However, a counter report
prepared by a panel of experts, formed by the
PMANE, contradicted the government by saying there
is a need for further studies on the volcanic
hazard in the areas surrounding the power plant.
These areas, argued PMANE, had experienced
volcanic eruptions in 1998, 1999, 2001 and in 2005
and the nearest eruption occurred just 26
kilometers away from the project site.
The
governmental panel, which had earlier presented
its findings, submitted a supplementary report
stating that Kudankulam had advanced design safety
features and Fukushima-type accident would never
occur. "So, creating fear in the minds of public
with partial information and selected video
clippings on Fukushima is mischievous and not in
the interest of the local public and the nation,"
the report concluded.
Given the fraught
background of the Kudankulam power plant, the
fresh face-off between the agitators and the
government portends ill for the project. The
government in New Delhi isn’t willing to back off
and may ask the anti-nuclear protestors to explain
the "misuse" of large amounts of foreign funding
received by their organizations.
The
current impasse once again also spotlights the
larger debate between the pro- and anti-nuclear
lobby groups about power generation in a country
that desperately needs clean power to sustain its
economic growth. Experts, including former
president and scientist APJ Abdul Kalam have been
advocating that India should go for "clean"
nuclear energy, including that from the Kudankulam
atomic plant that is safe. Kalam had warned that
fossil fuel burnt by states - equivalent to 30
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide - would damage
the Earth, so nuclear plants present a good option
to meet the energy requirements of the country's
billion-plus people.
Neeta Lal
is a widely published writer/commentator who
contributes to many reputed national and
international print and Internet publications.
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