The Kaiga Generating Station that experienced an accidental fire in the control room of its third unit on Friday looks normal in the eyes of the station authorities.
The Kaiga Generating Station (KGS) that experienced an accidental fire in the control room of its third unit on Friday looks normal in the eyes of the station authorities.
Although they put up a brave face, they were not able to answer why the fire broke out in a sensitive area like control room of a nuclear power-generating station.
At the joint press conference held in the guest house of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, JP Gupta, the site director of KGS, and the offsite director and deputy commissioner of Uttara Kananda BN Krishnaiah gave no conclusive reason for the fire in the control room.
Their view was that KGS was fully normal and was shut down for bi-annual surveillance programme that is a mandatory function for all nuclear power-generating stations.
The fire incident in the control room has advanced the surveillance programme for 2010-2011 by more than a month, as the surveillance programme for this bi-annual block was scheduled to start sometime in May. KGS will be online again on April 17, said Dr Gupta.
DNA learnt from reliable sources in KGS that there were a few sections in the control room that cannot be serviced without shutting off the system fully, but a particular segment in the control room was being serviced without shutting off that segment, which eventually sparked off a short circuit.
Kaiga officials maintained that the fire broke out well out of the safety zone and there was no danger, but the control room in itself was a sensitive area and there was no margin for errors there either. The officials still maintained that it was only smoke and there was no fire.
The officials harping on the technical qualification of their crew said that a graduate engineer, after joining the KGS, has to undergo one year classroom training and on-job training.
In addition, it has to clear a series of examinations and simulator trainings before being assigned any work in the operation of the nuclear plant. His technical expertise will be put to test by the expert panel constituted by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
But when asked how, despite all the technical expertise, a fire broke out in the control room, the officials were stumped for an answer.
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