VIENNA/ New Delhi – The global nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is deeply disturbed with the state of affairs at the Kudankulam nuclear plant that India is set to commission later this month, anonymity requesting at the agency told The Daily Mail here in Vienna. These sources say that the agency had been closely monitoring the state of affairs at India’s Kudankulam nuclear plant for quite some time and related media and intelligence reports were adding to the agency’s worries day by day. These sources further said that the IAEA received credible information that there were certain serious safety issues with the Kulankudam plant but the issues at that stage were out of the agency’s domain as it was considered an internal matter of India and the matter was also in India’s Supreme Court.
However, these sources say, after the Indian apex court gave go-ahead to the Indian government earlier this month to launch the plant without eradicating the safety concerns, some new issues also surfaced that included using of highly substandard components by the Indians in the nuclear plant and concerned officials of the agency were reportedly consulting sections concerned to bring the issues to the agency’s domain. However, any official comment by the IEAE was not available till the filing of this report.
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Our Correspondent Anjali Sharma ads from New Delhi: Scientists from several Indian institutions have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, expressing their extreme concerns over the use of substandard components in the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tiruneveli in southern Tamil Nadu.
The scientists pointed to credible reports that said four valves in a critical safety system in the plant were found to be seriously defective. A copy of the letter was also sent to the secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).
“As the Chief Minister of the states, hosting and neighbouring the nuclear power plant, the two of you have a responsibility to satisfy yourself and the residents of Tamil Nadu and Kerala that the plant has been constructed to the highest safety standards,” read the letter, singed by 60 top scientists of India. “Any exercise to assure oneself of the quality of components used will have to be done before the plant is commissioned. Once commissioned, the radioactive environment in sections of the plant will make it impossible to access and test some potentially critical components,” it added.
The letter was signed by scientists from Indian Institutes of Sciences, Bangalore (IISc), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras and Bombay, Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Indian Institute for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and several other research institutes.
On May 6, the Supreme Court gave a go-ahead to the project saying there is no basis to say that the plant will have an adverse impact on the environment and people living near the site. However, the Indian Supreme Court did not address the issue of unreliable safety valves and use of highly substandard components in the plant by the Indian government.
