Russia offers 4 more N-reactors to India

Russia offers 4 more N-reactors to India
JYOTI MALHOTRA

Russia is willing to help in the construction of four more nuclear reactors for the Kudamkulam power plant in Tamil Nadu, ignoring the objections of the international community on transferring nuclear material to a non-NPT signatory country like India.

According to highly-placed sources, Moscow made a new formal proposal to help construct four more reactors at the plant -- bringing the total to eight -- during the Indo-Russian joint commission meeting last month in the Russian capital. The Indian side at the meeting was led by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha.

Incidentally, the chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, has been recently quoted as saying that Moscow had offered to build four reactors at Kudamkulam.

But both sides as of now are playing safe, keeping the details of the new offer close to their chests, especially since Moscow has in the last few days come under considerable fire from the US over the supply of nuclear fuel to India's Tarapur nuclear power plant.

Interestingly, Russian sources in Moscow told this reporter that the US had so far ``not said anything to us, either verbally or through a demarche'' on this deal and felt that the critical comments by the US State Department were just diversionary tactics.

The deal to supply Kudamkulam's first two reactors was formally signed in 1988 but revived only in 1997 when the ``supplement'' to the agreement was signed. Last October when Russian President Vladimir Putin came to town, the offer to build two more reactors came up. Last month at the bilateral joint commission, the offer for another four was made by Moscow.

It is not clear, however, whether the additional four reactors will be part of the MoU on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy signed between the two sides during Putin's visit -- under which the Tarapur fuel supply will start later this summer -- or whether it will be tagged on to the 1988 agreement which predates the 1992 Nuclear Suppliers Group rules.

The Russian sources admitted however that at last month's meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (an international body that regulates the transfer of nuclear material to countries, proscribing those such as India which are not NPT signatories) in Vienna, ``western countries, with the exception of France'' had been highly critical of the Russian decision on Tarapur.

``But we argued that according to the NSG rules, a specific amount of nuclear fuel could be supplied to countries if the safety of the reactor is involved. That Tarapur was an exceptional case and, therefore, Russia was not violating the NSG rules. We also told them that we would go ahead with the deal with India,'' the Russian sources said.

MEA sources, meanwhile, rejecting the US criticism of the Russian supply, pointed out that Tarapur was fully under IAEA safeguards -- as is Kudamkulam -- and that the Americans had themselves once supplied it fuel. It was also said that in recent years the French and the Chinese had been doing so.