India’s Nuclear Liability law now discriminates against women and the poor

India’s low liability cap was seen as a capitulation by the government to the interests of US nuclear suppliers,

the law is also controversial over discriminatory compensation to be awarded to the poor or female victims of any nuclear disaster. As currently written, it allows the government’s claims committee to withhold compensation payments from women, the disabled, the illiterate, the low-caste and the ”fiscal backword” and give their money instead to relatives, quarantine it in bank accounts, or to pay it out in instalments.

Fear over India’s nuclear embrace, Narromine News BEN DOHERTY With SOM PATIDAR 23 Dec, 2011“…….While farmers and villagers protested against the creation of nuclear parks, which they argue will displace them and rob their livelihoods, India’s political class are angered by the government’s decision to limit the liability of nuclear plant operators and suppliers to just 15 billion rupees ($A270 million).

The total maximum liability has been set at $A450 million, low by
international standards: many countries have no cap, the US’s is above
$A10 billion.

Compensation for Japan’s Fukushima disaster will be between $A39
billion and $A52 billion, a government panel says.

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 their damages liability would be
minimised, should there be a nuclear accident.

Critics of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh say he has caved under
pressure from US President Barack Obama, and passed legislation ”not
in the people’s interests … [but] to appease the US and American
companies”.

The move will leave the victims of any potential nuclear accident with
narrow avenues of legal recourse for damages, says Prabir Purkayastha
from the Delhi Science Forum.

”Effectively the people’s right to access legal damages is reduced,” he says.

”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.”

Purkayastha says compensation then becomes ”an act of charity, a
matter of government largesse”, rather than that of legal
entitlement. Meanwhile, a group of eminent Indian citizens are
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”.
On another front, the law is also controversial over discriminatory
compensation to be awarded to the poor or female victims of any
nuclear disaster.

As currently written, it allows the government’s claims committee to
withhold compensation payments from women, the disabled, the
illiterate, the low-caste and the ”fiscal backword” and give their
money instead to relatives, quarantine it in bank accounts, or to pay
it out in instalments.

The government control is ”in the larger interest of the claimant”,
the legislation states. Purkayastha complains the approach is
paternalistic.

”It assumes that people are unable to make decisions for themselves.
No government should ever do that.”…..
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