By IANS,
New Delhi : A national alliance of political parties and groups warned Thursday that the location of six reactors at Jaitapur in Maharashtra “raises the risk of an accident substantially”.
The National Committee in Solidarity with Jaitapur Struggle, which met here Wednesday, said it was also not clear how the issues of spent fuel storage were being addressed.
“The committee noted that there is not one plant of this design that has yet been commissioned in the world, with plants in Okilkuoto and Flamanville running into serious problems, both in their construction and regulatory issues.
“The reactors being purchased from Areva company in France are of untested technology and are exorbitantly expensive.
“The cost per unit of electricity of such a plant will be 3-4 times that of equivalent coal-fired plants.”
The committee noted that the time bound conditions imposed on NPCIL in the Environmental Clearance granted to the project in November 2010 were already being flouted.
The meeting has decided to address a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raising these concerns.
The meeting was attended by Prakash Karat of CPI-M, A.B. Bardhan and D. Raja of CPI, Ramvilas Paswan of LJP, Venugopal Reddy of TDP, Danish Ali of JD-S and Prabir Purkayastha of Delhi Science Forum and others.