By IANS,
Chennai : The four-member expert panel set up to look into the safety aspects of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) and the fears of the local people could be part of the Tamil Nadu government’s strategy to checkmate protesters, said an official of India’s nuclear power plant operator Saturday.
“We hope it is the beginning of the end for the KNPP opposition. The composition of the panel is a positive development for the project,” said an official of the Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd. (NPCIL) refusing to be named.
What has given the atomic power establishment a boost is the inclusion of Atomic Energy Commission’s former chairman M.R. Srinivasan in the four-member panel announced by the state government Thursday.
The other members of the panel are two professors from the Anna University, D. Arivu Oli and S. Iniyan, and retired Indian Administrative Service officer L.N. Vijayaraghavan.
Despite the open request of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), spearheading the anti-KNPP struggle, the state government has decided not to include anti-nuclear power expert activists in the panel.
“Srinivasan is a party to the dispute. So he should not be there,” S.P. Udayakumar, coordinator of PMANE, told IANS.
He said the panel should meet people and take their views into consideration while concluding their report.
According to NPCIL officials in Kudankulam, the situation continues to remain unchanged.
“We are able to send in only around 100 persons inside the plant to maintain the systems. There is one consignment of spares and other components that is waiting for more than 10 days. We have to get the district administration’s nod to take the vehicle inside the plant,” an official, preferring anonymity, told IANS over phone.
Udayakumar said if the villagers living in and around Kudankulam decided that they wanted the plant, then other protesters will respect their wisdom.
The NPCIL is building two 1,000 MW atomic power reactors with Russian collaboration at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district, around 650 km from Chennai.
Villagers of Kudankulam, Idinthakarai and others fear for their lives and safety in case of any nuclear accident. Their agitation, led by the PMANE, had put a stop to the project work, delaying the commissioning of the first unit slated last December.
The Tamil Nadu government passed a resolution asking the central government to halt work at the power plant and allay the fears of the local people. To resolve the issue, the central and state governments had set up two panels.
The central panel submitted its final report Jan 31 and said its job was over. After the report, the Tamil Nadu government set up another expert committee.