The inordinate delay in the commissioning of the 1000 MW first unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant has caused apprehension in the minds of the local people that ‘something is rotten in KNPP’.
Dr RK Sinha, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, had told on the sidelines of the Indian Science Congress in Kolkata that the first unit of the plant would become operational by the third week of January and power would start flowing to the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Kerala within one month of the reactor becoming critical. “There is nothing wrong with the reactor and it will start functioning by this month end,” Sinha had said.
Though the month of February is coming to an end in the next 10 days, there is no sign of the Kudankulam plant turning critical or power starting to flow to the southern grid. The Central Government’s all previous assurances on the commissioning of the KNPP has fallen flat on all occasions. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his official visit to Moscow in December 2011 surpised all by declaring on the Russian soil that the Kudankulam plant would be operationalised in a couple of weeks and the second unit would be commissioned six months later. Even after one year, there is no sign of the plant coming alive casting a shadow on all other assurances made by Singh.
When the Prime Minister makes an announcement, can his oracle lag behindIJ Not to be outdone by Manmohan Singh. Narayanasamy, the Minister in PMO, went overboard and declared that the plant would be commissioned within a month. Whenever Narayanasamy makes a brief stopover in Chennai enroute to Puducherry, his parliamentary constituency, the minister will declare that the KNPP commissioning would happen anytime from now.
There has been a major erosion in the credibility of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India ltd, the public sector entity in charge of building and operating the country’s nuclear power plants. The Atomic Energy Commission too has failed again and again to meet the deadlines it set for commissioning the plant.
loading of fuel rods into the first unit of the 1000 MWe unit was completed ‘successfully’ on October 2, 2012. The NPCIl had claimed that one’s loading of fuel is over the plant would be ready for commissioning. But what happened after the ‘successful’ loading of fuel roads was a statement by NPCIl which said the Atomic Regulatory Board has given permission for repeating the “full system test” at the first unit. Since no announcement was there about the fate of the first full system test, one has to assume that it was a failure. News trickling out of KNPP said that some of the crucial components and equipment malfunctioned during the first test.
What gave credence to the failure theory was the NPCIl’s decision to rush in a team of engineers from Croatia and Germany to repair the damaged components. Along with this came the news about the arrest of Sergei Shutov, a director of Zio-Podolsk a subsidiary of Rosatom, which supplied the KNPP reactors. Shutov was arrested on charges of corruption, fraud and for supplying cheap Ukrainian steel blanks and steam generators in nuclear reactors built by Rosatom. “The scope of this scandal could reach every reactor in Russia and every reactor built by Russia over the past several years and demands immediate investigation,” a spokesman of Russian security service is reported to have said.
The general belief is that the KNPP contains steel components and steam generators supplied by Zio-Podolsk. The KNPP, of which the ground was broken in September 2001 was expected to be commissioned in March 2009. It is not clear whether power will start flowing from KNPP even in March 2013. A spokesperson of the Department of Atomic Energy expressed helplessness when asked about the possible date of commissioning. “I am sorry. The top bosses never discuss such details with us,” said the spokesperson.
MR Srinivasan, member, Atomic Energy Commission, had told the audience of Chennai Science Festival that Kudankulam would be a Pongal gift to the people of Tamil Nadu. The 2013 Pongal was over by January 14. Even as the atomic energy establishment is dilly-dallying on the KNPP, the anti-nuclear brigade in the country has gone overboard questioning the credibility of the DAE and NPCIl. A book “The Power of Promise” authored by MV Ramana, a research scholar with Princeton University, and published by Penguin/Viking was released in Chennai on Monday.
