The gravity of nuclear fuel shortage is something the country’s nuclear power establishment would never openly admit. The Indo-US nuclear deal was expected to ease the situation and make imports of fuel possible so that our existing plants could be run at higher capacity rather than the average 40-50 per cent PLF, on account of shortages. But given the current stalemate on the Indo-US nuclear deal, and with fresh indigenous supplies not forthcoming, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has been forced to change its position and has got words such as “import” of fuel, “shutting of units” deleted from recorded minutes on the status of their upcoming nuclear units.

Two new units at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) (unit 5 and 6) should have both become operational by February this year. However, crippled by fuel shortages, the NPCIL has been deliberately going slow on these units and is now not firm on when Unit 6 would start operations.

In a meeting of northern regional power committee — an official body comprising all stakeholders of the northern power grid — in January this year, the NPCIL officials said “RAPP unit 5 reactor would be critical by January 08” and that “work has been started at some uranium mines, and within a few months, situation in terms of fuel availability would improve”.

They even said, “Initially, for running unit 5 of RAPP, some other running unit may need to be shutdown.”

In a similar meet of the committee earlier this week (May 12), the NPCIL changed its position and asked for an amendment in the same paragraph to read, “Trial run operation has been started at new uranium mine and within a few months, situation in terms of fuel availability would improve and RAPP unit-5 reactor would be made critical at the earliest.”

... contd.