Govt bid to win over BJP,Left

The government had deferred introduction of the Bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday in the face of fierce opposition from the BJP and the Left. The government does not want the Bill to be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy,headed by SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav,as it could cause undue delay in carrying out nuclear commerce with international power producing companies.

In the meantime,to counter the “misinformation campaign” about the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill,the NSA on Tuesday briefed a group of Congress Ministers and MPs who posed several queries about the provisions of the Bill. They included Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal,Science & Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan,Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal,Minister of State for Communications & IT Sachin Pilot,Rashid Alvi,Sandeep Dikshit,Rajeev Shukla and Jayanthi Natarajan. The NSA was learnt to have clarified to them that rather than putting a cap on the liability for compensation — as claimed by the opponents of the Bill — the proposed legislation was intended to put in place a liability regime,which does not exist at present. After enacting the domestic legislation,India will sign the IAEA’s Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage and any amount exceeding the government’s liability of Rs 2,200 crore could be accessed from the international funds created under the CSC.

AICC spokesman and MP Manish Tewari said,“The perceptional battle on Nuclear Liability Bill is being fought by innuendos rather than facts. Truth is the only shield against calumny and therefore,people need to fortify themselves.”