Yet more nuclear follies in India – mydigitalfc.com by DiaNuke.org

Among the few issues on which the Manmohan Singh government cannot be accused of being indecisive is nuclear power. In fact, it shows a pathological obsession to push it regardless of considerations of safety, environmental soundness, economic costs and democratic propriety. In 2010, it desperately tried to limit liability for nuclear accidents to absurd levels and channel it exclusively to the operator of nuclear installations. Its efforts included high-pressure lobbying of a parliamentary standing committee, and when that failed, tampering with its consensus report to let suppliers of nuclear equipment totally off the hook.

These attempts failed. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Da­mage Act (CLNDA), 2010 was pa­ssed after an unusually info­rmed debate. This gives the operator the right of recourse to sue the supplier. It’s not a law that the US, French or Russian reactor manufacturers like. To pl­ease them, the government dr­afted rules under CLNDA, wh­ich are incompatible with that law’s spirit and reduce the extent and duration of supplier liability through the backdoor. N­ow, yet another parliamentary committee, on subordinate legislation, has assailed this slimy move. If this move is defeated, as it should and pr­obably will be, Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL), the sole operator, could well stoop even lower by signing secret agreements surrendering its right of recourse. That wo­uld cruelly mock democratic accountability, besides promoting carelessness in an ul­tra-hazardous industry one of whose distinguishing features is accident-proneness. Inde­ed, nuclear power generation is the only form of energy production that can lead to catastrophic accidents. It also carries other hazards, including radiation releases in all operations in mining up uranium, routine but harmful emissions, and above all, high-level wastes that remain dangerous for millennia and cannot be stored safely