Describing the smoke that reportedly appeared in unit 3 at the Kaiga nuclear plant as not real, site director J.P. Gupta, ruled out an enquiry into the incident.
"There is no necessity to have any inquiry, as it was spurious smoke and not an incident. If the problem is because of machines, we cannot have an inquiry. However we will check the machines, and if needed, replace them," Mr Gupta told Deccan Chronicle.
According to him, the unit was shut down, as soon as the smoke was detected at an inaccessible area, near the pump in Unit 3 on April 8. He clarified that the smoke detector was called a fire alarm.
"The fire alarm went off but that does not mean there is a fire. It could have happened because of some smoke," he said. "Something has happened and disappeared, due to which there was smoke. Whatever happened, got cleared immediately,” Mr Gupta clarified.
"We would have started the unit in 48 hours. Now we will open it up on April 17, as we will have to undertake surveillance work. Even otherwise, we had planned to undertake the surveillance excise, somewhere in the first week of May.
Since the unit is closed, we will undertake the surveillance work, and then start the unit," he said, and added that there was nothing abnormal at the plant.
Mr Gupta also said that a report had already been sent to the AERV. He made it clear that the shutdown of unit 3 would not have a major impact on power generation or supply from the plant.
"I assure you that Kaiga units are extremely safe, and there is nothing abnormal to be worried about. They are operated by highly professional experts," he said adding, “We have shut down the unit concerned as safety is of paramount importance to us.”