Once the controversial civil nuclear liability bill takes the shape of law, a complex generating one of the highest amounts of nuclear power in India would be set up in Ratnagiri district’s Jaitapur village.
Once the controversial civil nuclear liability bill takes the shape of law, a complex generating one of the highest amounts of nuclear power in India would be set up in Ratnagiri district’s Jaitapur village. The facility would have an installed capacity of 10,000 MW.
“The investment in the area would be upwards of Rs1,00,000 crore,” said union minister-of-state for science and technology Prithviraj Chavan. Stressing the virtues of nuclear power, he asserted that such an enormous quantity of power would be generated by moving merely 350 tonne of uranium to the village.
“In comparison, a coal-based power plant would require at least a shipload of coal to generate an equal amount of power,” he said.
“It would also create mountains of coal ash. If you take into account the carbon footprints of coal-based power stations, you’ll agree that nuclear power is the cleanest and the cheapest option.”
Aware of the problems that have been dogging the process of land acquisition in Jaitapur, Chavan has decided to visit Mumbai to sort out all pending issues with Maharashtra revenue minister Narayan Rane.
“We will look into all the problems,” he assured. “I can assert that we will offer the best possible compensation and relief-and-rehabilitation packages.” He added that though the plant’s power generation capacity was high, it would not require a proportionately large area of land.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, the public sector unit which is implementing the project, has already worked out an arrangement with French company Areva for the core equipment.
The first stage of the project involves setting up two reactors of 1650MW each and is expected to be completed within five to six years of the commencement of work.
Taking into account that a French company was playing the lead role in setting up the facility, Chavan asserted that the criticism that the government was acting under American pressure on the nuclear liability bill was ill-founded.
“We will be doing business with all of them — the Americans, the Russians, the French and, if possible, the Japanese too,” he quipped.
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