Strategic reserves

The PM placed great emphasis on India’s right to build strategic reserves of fuel for the reactors. He told Parliament that the Americans had given the assurance that India would be enabled to do so. As he was saying this in Rajya Sabha, the two under secretaries handling negotiations with India, Robert Joseph and Nicholas Burns, were telling the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Our negotiators were very clear that, while the US would be willing to provide reasonable fuel assurances designed to counter market imperfections, fuel assurances are not a ‘condition’ to any of India’s commitments under the plan — including, in particular, safeguards in perpetuity.”

A formal clause, Section 103 (b) (10), was incorporated in the Senate Bill, and is now in the final Act. It says: “Any nuclear power reactor fuel reserve provided to the Government of India for use in safeguarded civilian nuclear facilities should be commensurate with reasonable reactor operating requirements.” Enough just for “operating requirements”, not for building those pie-in-the-sky “strategic reserves”.

Uninterrupted fuel supplies

The PM told Parliament that India would be placing its reactors under safeguards “with assurances of uninterrupted supply of fuel to reactors... together with India’s right to take all corrective measures in the event fuel supplies are interrupted.” He repeated that condition four times. Even as he was doing so, American officials were telling the Senate Committee that India would have to and would be putting its reactors under safeguards in perpetuity.

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