By IANS
Vienna : India’s nuclear establishment chief Anil Kakodkar Wednesday said that the country was set to become a manufacturing hub of the global nuclear industry and looked forward to opening up of global civil nuclear cooperation that is “sustainable, free from interruption and consistent with its national policy”.
“India is looking forward to the possibility of opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation,” Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), said at the 51st General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.
“We expect such cooperation to be sustainable, free from interruptions and consistent with our national policy of closed fuel cycle,” he said.
Kakodkar underlined the potential of the India-US civil nuclear deal to make his country a hub for the export of nuclear reactors and allied services.
“India today is the only country to have technologies, design and infrastructure for small Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors with a unit capacity of 220 MW, which have a great potential for export, particularly to countries with small grids, wishing to enter nuclear power generation with relatively modest investment and infrastructure,” he said.
“With India’s large infrastructure base and relatively low manufacturing cost, there is also potential for India becoming a manufacturing hub for equipment and components for the global nuclear industry,” Kakodkar said.
He pointed out that an AEC panel has evaluated several coastal sites in the country for setting up of imported reactors.
Kakodkar, however, stressed that the nuclear deal will not impinge on India’s indigenous three-stage nuclear programme, adding that imported reactors would be in addition to the ongoing indigenous nuclear programme to augment nuclear power generation.
India has sought “clean, unconditional exemption” from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which is likely to meet and discuss the nuclear deal on the sidelines of the IAEA meeting in Vienna Thursday.
India is expected to finalise safeguards agreement with the IAEA before the NSG formally takes a stand on the path-breaking nuclear deal that will end New Delhi’s international nuclear isolation and allow import of nuclear reactors and technology after a gap of nearly three decades.
Kakodkar has, however, remained tight-lipped about India’s negotiations with the IAEA due to the political sensitivity of the issue back home where the Left parties have asked the government to put the deal on hold for six months.