In the post-1990 situation, when India faced a severe economic crisis and public investments in many areas were curtailed, work on the new uranium mines was actually stopped. The improvement in operations of our PHWRs and the resulting increase in demand for uranium appear to have been overlooked. It is also possible that the attention of the leaders of the atomic energy programme was directed to developing the nuclear deterrent, thus de-emphasising the immediate relevance of nuclear power.

It was only post-1997 that the importance of nuclear power in India’s energy mix was recognised once again. The activities on Tarapur 3 and 4, India’s large PHWRs (of 540 MW) and Kudankulam were revived. Serious attention to starting work on new uranium mines seems to have been restarted only after 2000. Earlier attempts may have received setbacks due to local opposition, objection to permitting mining activities in forest lands and other such factors common to opening of any new mine in the country. While execution of new mines are in progress in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh and may be taken up soon in Meghalaya and Karnataka, if our PHWRs are to be fuelled with Indian uranium only, their capacity factors are likely to be only at 50 per cent for the next five years. The situation would improve thereafter when the new mines start production.

If India were to succeed in the present efforts to re-enter international civil nuclear commerce, let us say in 2008, we could import natural uranium from overseas and target for capacity factors of about 90 per cent from 2009 onwards.

... contd.