INSIDE a grey west coast building built to survive cyclones, a tsunami and a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, the walls blink with countless computer screens in dust-free, humidity-free control rooms.

Engineers wearing oversize white cotton shoe covers never take their eyes off panels indicating how many mega watts electricity zips from India’s two largest and—so far—costliest nuclear power reactors that have come alive 120 km northwest of Mumbai at Tarapur, seven months before schedule with Rs 400 crore saved from a Rs 6,500 crore budget.

For the 540 MW Tarapur Atomic Power Plant (TAPP-4) the initial target was seven years, trimmed to six-and-a-half years, and achieved in five years last year, when it started generating electricity. India’s 16th nuclear power reactor TAPP-3, also 540 MW capacity, attained its first sustained nuclear fission chain reaction at 10.44 am last Sunday.

But the real story of the twin reactors began in 1984, surviving years of frozen finances, and unused, expensive equipment that had to be protected from rust.

IN 1984, a group of 30-35 handpicked engineers got down to work at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre with just one directive. ‘‘I was pulled out of all other work and given a place to sit at BARC, to lead the design of India’s first 500 MW reactor,’’ recalls S L Kati, who led the reactor design team. ‘‘We didn’t do any other work except this.’’

Kati’s team completed its job over a decade before construction started about five years ago with 10,000 workers, 250 engineers, and 30,000 site activities monitored on computers every 12 hours.

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