The unit at Rawatbhatta, shut down in July last year for feeder replacement, is expected to restart only by July, a NPCIL official said.

Without mentioning anything about the fuel shortage, the official said the total power generation had been consistent with fuel availability through the year. However, NPCIL had, in an earlier communication to The Indian Express, pointed out that there are five functional uranium mines but just one processing mill working in Jadugudda in Jharkhand. Supplies from this one mill were not sufficient to run all the nuclear plants at their full capacities, it had said, adding that once another processing mill in Jharkhand starts operations shortly, the situation would improve significantly.

Not surprisingly, the two nuclear plants still running at around 90 per cent of their capacities are the units 1 and 2 at Tarapore which had received emergency fuel supplies from Russia last year. Such supplies are not possible for any other Indian reactor till the nuclear deal is operationalised.