The timeframe for setting up of nuclear power projects is set to be decreased from five to two years, said minister of state in PMO V. Narayanasamy.
The Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority Bill, currently pending with Parliament, has a provision to reduce the timeframe from five to two years.
“At present, 17 permissions are required in order to start a plant,” the minister stated while addressing the Fifth International Conference on Nuclear Energy.
Mr Narayanasamy also emphasised that the Koodankulam nuclear reactor will start generating 1,000 MW of power by October-end, thereby helping Tamil Nadu tide over its power crisis.
“Some organisations had been very active at Koodankulam but we took them on and went about setting up a seven-layer safety system. A local news channel took a poll in which 97 per cent of the local people wanted nuclear power,” he said.
The minister also stressed that the country’s first fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam was 97 per cent complete and the work was expected to be commissioned by 2014.
“The country’s growth had come down to 5 per cent and to increase growth levels we needed to increase our energy component. The energy demand has been increasing enormously and it has also become expensive,” he added. Holding that India’s nuclear power programme was “unassailable”, he said India was committed to setting up the nuclear plant at Jaitapur.
to be supplied by the Areva group.
Mr Narayanasamy also highlighted how the land had been identified and acquired in Haryana to set up another nuclear plant. “Some NGOs from Japan came to persuade farmers (post-Fukushima) not to allow the project to go through. But the local people did not allow them to come there,” he said.
Land for setting up a nuclear plant had also been identified in Madhya Pradesh.
The focus of the government would be to increase power generation to the tune of 17,000 MW by the end of the 12th Plan.
Following the Fukushima disaster, the Prime Minister had constituted six committees to investigate the safety issue of the existing nuclear power plants and a slew of corrective measures were taken, he added.