India's Nuclear 'Renaissance' Over Even Before It Began

NEW DELHI: India’s nuclear ‘renaissance’ as declared by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be in tatters, having hit several stumbling blocks. Instead of the promised new burst of energy it seems to be fading, and rather rapidly at that.

One of the projected highlights of PM Modi’s visit to France in April this year was the agreement for the construction of a nuclear power plan in Jaitapur with Areva. Somehow both the UPA and the NDA governments have not been able to overcome a strange fascination for Areva, despite warnings by several Indian nuclear experts over the years. Since the agreement was signed amidst great enthusiasm Areva, in financial problems at the time as well, has gone technically bankrupt. This was foreseen by experts in india, who had pointed to the fact that the French company had not sold a single new reactor since 2007. And its recent presence in the market was marked by two mismanaged products, of which the one in Finland was at least 10 years behind schedule.

But just as Singh did not heed these warnings, the government under PM Modi also preferred to play the ostrich by sinking its head into the nuclear sand, and signed the huge nuclear reactor order with the French company. Areva that was struggling to survive then, gave up subsequently, and has been taken over by EDF in fact within weeks of PM Modi’s visit. EDF with a 75% stake is all set to overhaul what it has taken over, with a new designing, manufacturing and servicing plan. The Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project thus is unlikely to see the light of day, or at least not in the foreseeable future.

The major nuclear flagship for both the UPA and the NDA governments has been the India-US civilian nuclear agreement. Singh placed his own Prime Ministership at stake to get this agreement off the ground but ran into a major hurdle with the Nuclear Liability Law passed by Parliament, that effectively cut into the American enthusiasm for this agreement. PM Modi picked this up this agreement almost immediately after assuming power, and the stuck deal was declared “done” during the visit of US President Barack Obama.

No details were given at the time, and subsequently it was disclosed that the two governments were working on a central insurance pool to circumvent some of the provisions of the Liability Law. How this will happen on the ground is still not clear, more so as the Law is passed by Parliament and the insurance understanding---even if worked out to the last point---will not have the Indian legislature’s backing.

When asked about it a senior nuclear scientist told The Citizen that those sharing his apprehensions were actually now waiting for this agreement “to die a natural death.” The reasons, as he pointed out, were plentiful with the devil lying in the details of the current negotiations that had been far from resolved, the burgeoning rise in the price of nuclear reactions and hence, nuclear power, and the risks involved through the increasing privatisation of nuclear energy that activists across the world have been highlighting.

The latest comments on the progress of the India US nuclear agreement came from the US Ambassador to India Richard Verma while speaking at an Indian Express event. He made two points under the positive spin that he was giving to most issues. One, the deal “is not going to happen quickly” and two, the reasons for this. The last were outlined by him in his rather brief response to a question on the agreement as : a) the insurance polls is still being worked on, it is not up and running; b) the commitment to ratify the convention on liability is a major issue of concern and needs to “go through” before any progress can be recorded; c) that his convention then operates “consistently with international practice; and d) government to government commitments then will need to be reflected in commercial contracts.

In a laypersons terms the situation is pretty much the same as it was when the agreement was signed by the two top leaders, and progress has been slow. Perhaps Ambassador Verma recorded this as well when he said, “this is a multi-month and year process, it’s not going to happen quickly but we continue to move towards this goal.” Loose ends are still being tied up, unravelling even as these are knotted, to ensure the implementation of an agreement that India has placed at the centre of her relations with the U.S for reasons best known to Singh and now PM Modi.

As strategic expert Brahma Chellaney wrote earlier this year, “the Modi government has yielded ground, even at the risk of facing criticism at home. For example, it has agreed to reinterpret domestic law so as to effectively transfer reactor vendors’ nuclear accident liability risks to Indian taxpayers. Indian law allows suppliers to be held liable in case of an accident. The government is also reinterpreting another provision of the law to bar victims of a nuclear accident in India from suing for damages in the U.S.

These actions are likely to prove controversial, given India’s bitter experience over the 1984 gas leak from an American-owned Bhopal city plant that killed about as many people as the Fukushima disaster. Indeed, Japan’s dual liability laws, which indemnify suppliers and make plant operators exclusively liable, should serve as a sobering lesson for India: GE built or designed all the three Fukushima reactors that suffered core meltdowns in 2011, yet the U.S. firm went scot-free, despite a fundamental design deficiency in the reactors.”

In the meantime the price of nuclear energy has gone up enormously, making it unfeasible for the world that is now looking at solar energy---where it can of course---as a cheaper and more viable option, besides being safe and not fraught with high risk factors such as nuclear power. Both the UPA and NDA governments moved against anti-nuclear activists who were accused of holding up nuclear projects, and hence “development” in different parts of the country. In crackdowns, activists were arrested, jailed and even branded as Maoists in some cases. More so as the anti-nuclear struggle had got the support of villagers concerned about the acquisition of their land, and nuclear safety with the Bhopal Gas tragedy remaining the benchmark for them.