By IANS,
New Delhi: With the political standoff over the civil nuclear liability bill persisting, the government Wednesday offered to “discuss coolly” all issues relating to the legislation and urged the opposition not to be “obstructionist” in the country’s drive to ramp up nuclear energy.
The government also clarified that there are no plans to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) or domestic private sector participation in the nuclear energy sector as it sought to salvage the nuclear liability bill by indicating that it was open to fresh suggestions.
“I think there is a lot of scare being created by certain political parties, particularly by our Left friends. The moment the issue of any likely foreign participation comes up there is a red flag,” Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan told reporters here.
“I think these issues could be coolly discussed either in parliament or in standing committee or we are willing to discuss it in a personal meeting,” Chavan told reporters organised by business forum Assocham.
However, if the opposition is political it was a different matter, he said. “Then, we have to take it further,” he added.
“Let us begin somewhere and not be obstructionist,” Chavan said when asked about the opposition’s demands for scaling up the compensation amount by the operator. The proposed nuclear liability legislation seeks to cap the operator’s liability at Rs.500 crore (around $100 million).
Chavan, however, ruled out FDI or private sector participation in the generation of nuclear energy as the sector was “extremely sensitive”.
“The first challenge would be to pass the Nuclear Civil Liability Bill with a collaborative approach,” Chavan said.
“After the bill is through, the government would be able to create conditions to forge alliances between domestic power sector companies and their counterparts overseas,” Chavan said at the Conference on Nuclear Energy: Need for Legal & Regulatory Framework for Investment.
Chavan said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has ambitious plans to import equipment to expand its indigenous nuclear generation power programme from countries like France, Russia and the US.
“The imports will be subject to conditions that suppliers would have to take the entire risk for meeting emergency requirements, which can be possible provided the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill has a smooth passage in parliament,” the minister explained.
Alluding to the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1962 that bars private operators from producing nuclear energy, Chavan stressed that the government has “no intention right now” of amending the law to seek foreign investment.
The government was considering amendments to the AEA to make regulatory bodies autonomous and also to make it compliant with certain international conventions, he said.
Chavan stressed that state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) would be buying equipment from suppliers in America, Russia and France and there was no question of seeking any investments from them.
“It is purely a buyer-supplier relationship. We are not seeking investments,” he said.
Reliable sources said that the government was open to some suggestions like hiking the compensation beyond Rs.500 crore to the size of the atomic nuclear power plant to blunt the criticism of the opposition.
The government also plans to go on an information offensive to correct misperceptions about the legislation, the sources said.
The process started with National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon briefing select Congress leaders on various facets of the bill so that they can counter the opposition’s onslaught in a more effective manner.
Menon Tuesday briefed media savvy faces of the Congress party, including Manish Tiwari, Jayanthi Natarajan, Sachin Pilot, Kapil Sibal and Sandeep Dikshit.
The government deferred the tabling of the contentious nuclear liability bill Monday in the face of a hostile opposition. The passing of the legislation is one of the last remaining steps required to operationalise the 2008 India-US 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement.