GoI ubmit to NPT

Government of India may sign NPT and allow Foreign Corporations to build Nuclear Power Plants – panic driven crazy energy policy or shrewd politics?

Babu Ghanta
Mar. 26, 2005

It is true that France gets about 78 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy driven power plants. It has 59 nuclear reactors operated by Electricite de France, the state-owned energy monopoly. The cost of nuclear-generated electricity in France fell by 7 per cent from 1998 to 2001.

India wants to follow the same model and solve the energy crisis that is crippling the balance of payments of the country. The Planning Commission is in a panicked situation and is planning to import Uranium after signing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The way out being suggested is that the country sign the NPT for the purpose of hiking power capacity, while leaving the existing indigenous capacity untouched.

The Government wants to increase the power generation to 6,780 MW by 2008 from the current level of 2,720 MW. The government has a target of enhancing the capacity to 10,000 MW by 2012 and to 20,000 MW by 2020.

According to experts nuclear power generation over time becomes cheaper. But signing the NPT can compromise India Nuclear defense options. BJP is totally against any signing of NPT. According to BJP this is crazy behavior coming out from panic of $58 oil in the market.

Some international think tanks disagree. They believe that India can cause serious problem for Pakistan by signing the NPT and allowing foreign corporations to build Nuclear Power Plants in India.

The issue of going Nuclear for power generation needs to thought from many directions. Many in France believe that was a wrong decision. The safety issues in densely populated India, lack of standards and operational procedures as well as regulatory agencies, pollution issues all weigh against Nuclear Power generation.

What India should have done twenty years back and still is not doing due to lack of education, technology awareness among the politicians and policy makers is the fact that India needs to take the leadership in Bio generated Gas and Oil, Hydrogen, Solar, Wind and Tidal waves to extract usable energy.

Neither America nor Russia depends on Nuclear energy for power generation.

It is time for India to focus on alternative fuels instead of Business Process Outsourcing and Information technology. BPO and IT is the boom of the past and lack of alternative fuels is the disaster of the future. Nuclear Energy in India can be recipe for mega-disaster. A mini Chernobyl type accident will wipe out many millions of people immediately and much larger number of people over time.