How do you assess India as a nuclear power-producing country?
The problem with us is we pretend to know everything. Most people at the department of atomic energy (DAE) have a chip on their shoulders. The threat of a serious nuclear accident is real.
You've been talking about not learning from past mistakes...
The '93 Narora fire was investigated by an independent AERB committee. The fire resulted from the failure of two steam turbine blades. It could've caused a partial meltdown of the core. The blade failure was identical to several failures observed more than three years prior to the accident. GEC, which manufactured these turbines, had intimated these failures and sent corrected blade designs to bhel, who were their collaborators in manufacturing the turbines. bhel urgently conveyed to npc the need for blade replacement in the turbines at Narora, Kakrapar and Kaiga plants. Though this advice was given to the DAE/npc a couple of years prior to the Narora fire, no action was taken.
Why do you doubt the AERB's autonomy?
Organisationally and functionally, the AERB is not independent of the DAE. More than 95 per cent of the total members of the regular AERB safety evaluation committees are DAE engineers who are often instructed by the top management of DAE on crucial issues.
How does that affect the functioning of the AERB?
When, as chairman, I appointed an independent expert committee to investigate the containment collapse at Kaiga, the aec chairman wanted its withdrawal and matters left to the committee formed by the npc MD. DAE also complained to a minister in the pmo who tried to force me to back off.
The DAE says that of the 134 items in your report, action has been taken on a number of issues and only 44 items remain. Of these, 23 are mostly of a long-term nature. Comment.
As long as they don't say what the long-term items are, I can't comment. But I know that 'long term' is a euphemism for leaving things undone. What I've said in the '95 report was identified by the DAE as early as '79. The '79 report, which was prepared after the Three Mile Island accident and the subsequent one in '87, have the same problems.
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