Experts: Nuclear power production in country just 3%

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Phagwara, January 6

With 22 nuclear power plants already running across the country and producing nearly 6,780 MW power, officials of Nuclear Power Corporation India Limited (NPCIL) believe that the country is way behind its target to have 16 per cent power production from nuclear energy.

The outreach team of the NPCIL at the expo organised by the Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University maintained that the overall nuclear power production in the country was only 3 per cent as of now.

Asked if Punjab could have it, they said, “Though there are various aspects like availability of a perennial river around for cooling the systems, seismic zone factor and other things which need to be looked into, but by and large there should not be a problem. If Haryana can have it in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh has it at Narora and there are two each in Gujarat, MP, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu then why not Punjab? It all depends on the will of the state government.”

Amit Kumar of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalapakkam, tried to dispel fears around the use of nuclear power, “We have a robust regulatory mechanism. There is no health hazard even if we are exposed to 1 sievert of radiation. The Department of Atomic Energy has set a limit of 0.5 sievert. I have been myself working in the test reactor for nine hours a day for the past 10 years and have so far being exposed only to 10 milli-sievert radiation. So, it is completely a non-issue.”