Shyam Saran proposes ‘private nuke-plants’ in India

“Once the private players gain experience in the nuclear field,the government may consider allowing them to establish nuclear plants of their own,” he said.

Saran said for the last 40 years,the Indian nuclear programme had both strategic and civilian compenents intertwined in it and this has created a bottleneck for private sector participation.

“Now India has prepared a separation plan,which will be completed by 2014. Until a complete separation takes place,bringing in private sector may create certain difficulties,” he said.

The government,Saran said,will soon amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 to enable private participation in the civil nuclear programme that the Act had originally barred. He,however,did not elaborate by when the Act will be amended.

“The government doesn’t have a closed mind on private participation in the nuclear programme. But the government is cautious about it,as it is a sensitive subject. It will be a while before private participation is allowed,” he said.

He said India will scale up nuclear energy production to 60,000 megawatts by 2030 after signing pending N-deals with more countries.

“It is our expectation to achieve generation of 60,000 MW of nuclear energy by 2030. The earlier target was 20,000 MW by 2020. The expectation has increased with the kind of opportunities we are having now with more N-deals coming up for signing,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the summit.”

Saran said Kazakhstan,Russia and France have agreed on nuclear collaboration with India and there is a letter of intent for generation of 10,000 MW of nuclear power in collaboration with the US. “There are a large number of players and the capacity is going to be large,” he said.

The nuclear deal,the former Foreign Secretary said,will allow fruitful partnership between Indian private sector with foreign players and the spin-off will be significant in dual-use technologies.

He said India will soon sign the international convention on liability insurance and the matter will be taken up by the Cabinet for a decision soon. However,he did not elaborate on the issue.

The Special Envoy said the country will be able to produce 10,000 MW of nuclear energy for the next 40 years if it relied only on its own uranium reserves.

But,under the three-stage nuclear energy programme,New Delhi would like to move to thorium-based reactors in the third stage from the current uranium-based reactors.

He also hailed the Indo-US nuclear deal and the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group’s waiver for opening up the entire international market for India and for breaking the shackles of the New Delhi-specific technology denial regimes.