Nuclear Energy

Part VI: DAE's New Toys: The Kudankulam and Jaitapur Nuclear Parks
The DAE/NPC have built and operated India’s nuclear reactors so dangerously that it can
only be the combined might of the 33 crore Gods in the heavens which has prevented a Chernobyl
from occurring in India!
The government of India is so unconcerned with safety at India’s nuclear reactors that we
don’t even have an independent safety regulator, the only country in the world having nuclear
power programs where such a situation prevails!!
And yet, the government of India is planning to set up a string of giant nuclear parks – with
reactors three to eight times dlxvi as big as the ones we have installed at present – all along India's
coastline. The first of these is coming up at Kudankulam, in Tamil Nadu, for which Russia is to
supply six VVER-1000 nuclear power generators. Construction of the first two units began in 2002,
and preliminary agreements have been signed for the construction of the next four units.
Preparations for starting construction work at the second nuclear park, at Jaitapur in
Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, have reached an advanced stage. This nuclear plant is going to be
even bigger than the Kudankulam plant, with six reactors of 1650 MW each, to be supplied by the
French nuclear corporation Areva. The project was hurriedly given environmental clearance on
November 28, 2010, to please the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, anointed by Washington Post
as "the world's most aggressive nuclear salesman", dlxvii who visted India in early December 2010;
on December 6, in his presence, the NPC and Areva signed a General Framework agreement and an
Early Works Agreement for the construction of the first two reactors. dlxviii
Routine Impact
The problems generic to nuclear power will of course destroy the environment and health of
the people of these areas for centuries to come.
The routine releases of radioactivity from these plants, and the inevitable leakage from the
radioactive waste generated by the plant, will cause the most terrible diseases in the nearby
population. This is actually inadvertently admitted to by the DAE and AERB, because their
regulations regarding siting of nuclear plants say: 1.6-km radius zone around a nuclear power
station must have no habitation; the next 5-km radius area must be a “sterilised zone”, where “the
density of population should be small so that rehabilitation will be easier”; finally, in the outlying
16-km radius, “the population should not exceed 10,000”. dlxix
Of course, both these august bodies are not bothered about the fact that the siting of
Kudankulam and Jaitapur nuclear plants violates these norms. In the case of the Kudankulam plant,
three large settlements exist within a 5 km radius zone: Kudankulam (population 20,000),
Idinthakarai (population 12,000), and a new tsunami (rehabilitation) colony (population 2,000-plus).
Parts of the tsunami colony are actually less than a kilometer from the reactors. At least 70,000
people live in the 16 km radius around the plant. dlxx Similarly, the villages Madban (population
1000), Mithgavane (population 2000), Sakhari Nate (population 5000), Jaitapur (population 800),
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