A look at the present scenario:
"Nuclear power is at the crossroads," says a top source at the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). "The past is over, the present is uncertain, and the future is tense." While the liberalised economy’s energy requirements are leapfrogging and quality coal and petroleum reserves dwindling, the nuclear industry is hobbling.
Of the 81,164 MW of power generated by March 31 this year, nuclear energy accounted for just 2,225 MW as against the 58,110 MW and 20,829 MWcontributed by thermal and hydel power respectively. It contributed just 880 MWto the 20,730 MWof new generation capacity added during the Eighth Plan, and will contribute half of that during the Ninth Plan when an additional 32,067 MW is expected to be added. Hydel, on the other hand, is estimated to increase its share from 3,797 MWto 16,829 MW.
Has the nuclear establishment missed the bus? Says Y.S.R. Prasad, managing director of the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) which was carved out of the AEC seven years ago to build, own and run the nuclear plants: "We’re producing barely 2 to 2.5 per cent of the total energy requirements." Incidentally, nuclear power accounts for 30.9 per cent of all power generated in Japan, 0.9 per cent in Pakistan and 0.2 per cent in China.
Prasad says sustained funding is essential for the Indian nuclear establishment to stand on its feet again (see interview). But it’s goodbye Fabian Socialism, hello Narasimha Rao. The Congress Government has told the powers-that-be just where the buck stops.
This week, the AEC sits down to a full-board meeting to discuss a consolidated report prepared by the Atomic Energy Regulatory board (AERB) on what is wrong with the safety aspects of the nuclear plants. NPC’s standing is closely linked with its safety record. Says an AEC source: "The time has come to set some things right. If there’s no response (from the NPC) at the December 18 meeting, the Government might soon get involved."
For the record, NPC has posted a profit of Rs 70 crore in the first six months of the current financial year. But that is small change for an organisation which has drawn up huge plans. It wants to set up an additional two units each at Kaiga, Rajas-than and Tarapur, and a new one at Kudan-kulam in Tamil Nadu. With reactors TAPS-I and II, RAPS-I and II and MAPS-II disfunctio nal, and regular maintenance and repair work pending, NPC’s wallet isn’t fat enough.
Says Dr A.Gopalakrishnan, chairman of AERB who has often faced flak for ordering closure of plants: "Unless the viewpoints of the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry change considerably, NPC will find it tough to survive comfortably in the near future and come out with a viable business enterprise in the long run."
There are many, though, who would argue that business is the last of NPC’s worries. They feel that the nuclear programme is a figleaf for a bigger agenda, the bomb, and that nuclear power is only a byproduct. Prasad refutes the charge that the NPC’s unaccountability stems from that fact and losses thus are of no consequence.
Barring such faint murmurs, the establishment has done little to correct the impression. Project delays continue. The Kaiga project, sanctioned in the early 1980s at a cost of Rs 730 crore, is now expected to cost four times more, if not higher. Eighteen months after the inner containment dome came crashing down, reports from both the NPC and the AERB are still to be made public. Result: more delay.
Deja vu. The two units of the Narora plant were sanctioned in 1974 at Rs 209.89 crore. They were expected to go critical in December 1981. They did so a decade later. Says Karnataka-based activist B.M. Kumara-swamy: "Construction costs of nuclear plants have proved to be much higher than was first expected. They take more time to be built, keeping in view public safety."
Says A.N. Prasad, director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre: "Escalating prices of components and long gestation periods have grossly affected the future of nuclear power though returns are higher than in thermal power."
Subscribers, of course, couldn’t care less. Electricity comes cheap in India (Rs 1.13 per kilo-watt hour against, say, Rs 6.27 in Japan). Nuclear power from units like Tarapur even more so (69 paise per kilo-watt hour). But state electricity boards (see box) owe NPC Rs 880 crore in pending bills. But since NPC doesn’t have the teeth to bite, it has been moving from pillar to post for two years now for a long overdue tariff hike, but to no avail.
Expensive equipment is lying around in nuclear complexes due to delays in construction, resulting not only in cost overruns but also in its becoming a public hazard. A radioactive leak at Tarapur early this year was attributed to exposure of sensitive equipment to moisture.
For the Indian nuclear industry, short on safety, technology, viability, performance and now money, tough times await.
