The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), the alliance working against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, being built with Russian assistance at 650 km south of Chennai, has sent a Save Our Souls (SOS) message to the BJP asking the main Opposition party in the country to demand a thorough probe into the whole project which has robed the exchequer of more than `13,200 crore.
“The commissioning of the 1,000-MW Unit One of the KNPP has been shifted 20 times since December 15, 2011. On that day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared in Russia that the Unit One would be commissioned within a couple of weeks. Since then V Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office and top echelons of the Department of Atomic Energy had made a series of announcements about the possible dates of commissioning. But nothing happened which has given rise to strong doubts in the mind of the people about the safety of the reactor. We feel that there are many irregularities and improprieties associated with the project,” M Pushparayan, the convener of the PMANE told The Pioneer.
He said the SOS from the PMANE has been timed to coincide with the National Executive meeting of the BJP. The SOS message, a copy of which is with The Pioneer, has listed a number of irregularities and dubious deals, some of which are already there in the public domain.
The PMANE points out that the Nuclear Power Corporation of India ltd (NPCIl), which executes the construction and operation of the KNPP, had refuted earlier allegations that sensitive and critical equipment were purchased from companies like Zio Podolsk and Informtech. But the same NPCIl has accepted that critical components had been procured from these Russian companies which are enmeshed in controversies and scams for supplying sub-standard components.
“Alexander Murach, director, Informtech, a subsidiary of Atomstroyexport, the Russian Nuclear Energy Commission, has been convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment by a Russian court for selling counterfeit measuring equipment for the turbines of nuclear and hydro-power plants. The NPCIl agreed that it has procured communication equipment from Informtech,” said the PMANE statement.
The anti-nuclear brigade also charged that Alexander Kadakin, the Russian Ambassador in India is creating confusion in the minds of the people with unnecessary and unacceptable comments.
“Atomstroyexport, the Russian nuclear company, has just released its financial statements for the year 2011. The company claims that losses in 2011 are twice bigger than the losses of 2010 and the company is on the brink of bankruptcy. This has seriously affected the Russian nuclear projects at Kudankulam and Bushar in Iran. We wonder if the Indian Government is secretly helping the Russian company with its losses and bankruptcy,” said the PMANE message.
This is the first time, the PMANE activists approach a national party asking its support for a thorough and detailed probe into the whole KNPP deal. Though the NPCIl had earlier denied all news items about procuring of components from Zio Podolsk and Informtech, in its replies to recent RTI quarries, it has agreed that critical components has indeed been procured from the tainted Russian companies.
The PMANE letter to the BJP comes immediately after A Gopalakrishnana, former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board wrote to the Government asking for clarifications on the India-Russia deal on KNPP.