India is expected to stress that guns, gates and guards do not make nuclear plants secure at the Nuclear Security Summit which began here as 58 world leaders on Monday began discussing measures to secure all vulnerable fissile materials across the globe.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will speak on the interface between nuclear safety and nuclear security in his luncheon address to the summit tomorrow. He is also expected to underline steps taken by India to make its nuclear installations secure.
"The issue of safety has to be taken care of at the planning stage. Guns, gates and guards do not make a plant secure. Right at the design stage the zoning has to be done in such a way that access to areas can be easily controlled," Ravi Grover, Senior Adviser, Department of Atomic Energy told reporters here.
A key theme at the second Nuclear Security Summit was tackling insider threats to nuclear installations. India is expected to state that such concerns need to be addressed at the stage when a nuclear plant is designed.
"It has to be done in such a manner that a particular person has access to a particular area and not all areas of a nuclear installation," Grover said.
Sources said that the 'insider threat' was more a concern in Pakistan's nuclear installations than in India. US President Barack Obama opened the Summit this evening with a assurance that the US would further cut its own nuclear stockpiles.
Obama delivered a hard-hitting address in Seoul before the nuclear security summit opened, seeking to build global momentum in the drive to eliminate or safeguard material that could be used to make thousands of bombs.