nuclear-news

India weakens nuclear safety, and nuclear liability law

The bill aims at a formal ‘regulatory capture’ of the nuclear sector so that a few top people in the executive branch, in collusion with some of the senior atomic scientists, bureaucrats and politicians, can help the Indian and foreign corporate sectors in importing foreign power reactors into India on their terms, irrespective of their
relative safety or cost merits.”

 Safety fears for new uranium customer SMH, Ben Doherty, Som Patidar, Som Patidar December 23, 2011 NEW DELHI: India, Australia’s newest uranium export destination, is to dismantle its nuclear regulator, replacing the expert panel with a government-controlled body critics say will be a ”sham” and ”no regulator at all”. Legislation before the Indian parliament would replace the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, which has monitored the use, transfer and disposal of nuclear material in India for 28 years, with the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority.

The NSRA will be answerable to a clutch of government ministers who can direct the regulator, even sack its members, giving rise to allegations that the new body will be captive to government. The controversial move comes as Australian officials prepare to begin negotiations with India about the sale of uranium to its civilian nuclear program.
This month the Labor Party overturned a long-standing ban on selling uranium to India because it refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. India remains steadfastly outside the treaty but has signed other international agreements and is now subject to inspections by the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
But nuclear experts say safety will be compromised under the new
domestic regulator.

Adinarayan Gopalakrishnan, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy
Regulatory Board, said the new authority was being formed to allow
vested interests to control and profit from India’s nuclear industry.

”The Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority Bill will not lead to an
independent or transparent regulator in this sector,” Dr
Gopalakrishnan told the Herald.

”The bill aims at a formal ‘regulatory capture’ of the nuclear sector
so that a few top people in the executive branch, in collusion with
some of the senior atomic scientists, bureaucrats and politicians, can
help the Indian and foreign corporate sectors in importing foreign
power reactors into India on their terms, irrespective of their
relative safety or cost merits.”

Prabir Purkayastha, from the Delhi Science Forum, said a government
embarrassed by a nuclear accident or faced with allegations of
mismanaging its nuclear plants could keep regulators from
investigating.

”The regulator may want to investigate an issue at a nuclear power
plant but if the government of the day, for a political reason, says
‘No, it is safe, you cannot inspect it,’ it has the authority to tell
the regulator what to do. You really have no regulator at all, because
it’s not independent,” he said.

Serious safety lapses are not without precedent in India…..
The country plans to treble its nuclear output by the end of the
decade, and to get a quarter of its energy from nuclear sources by
2050. But, almost as quickly as plants are being approved, new
concerns about India’s burgeoning industry are emerging.
The nuclear parks, for which farmlands and villages would be seized in
five states, have attracted the most widespread criticism.
Land-holders have staged sit-ins, hunger-strikes and launched violent
protests at the construction sites.
The fiercest opposition has been reserved for the plant under way at
Jaitapur, on India’s west coast, which is being built on a cliff top
in an identified seismic zone. From 1985 to 2005, there were 92
earthquakes in the area, the largest being a 6.3-magnitude quake in
1993……

While farmers and villagers protested against the creation of nuclear
parks, India’s political class was angrier at the decision to limit
the damages liability of nuclear plant operators and suppliers to just
15 billion rupees ($270 million). India’s low liability cap was seen
as a capitulation by the government to the interests of US nuclear
suppliers, who were refusing to enter the Indian market without
assurances that their damages liability would be minimised should
there be a nuclear accident.
Critics of Dr Singh say he yielded to pressure from the US President,
Barack Obama. ”Effectively the people’s right to access legal damages
is reduced but, because in reality no government can walk away from a
nuclear accident, it will become a matter of political pressure that
is placed on the government of the day to give compensation to the
people affected by an accident, rather than the companies being
strictly liable,” Mr Purkayastha said.
A group of eminent Indian citizens is challenging the new legislation
in the Supreme Court, arguing a diminished and capped liability ”puts
to grave and imminent risk the right to safety, health, environment
and life of the people of India”…
: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/safety-fears-for-new-uranium-customer-20111222-1p77s.html#ixzz1hPhAdJLm

December 23, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, safety