New Delhi
18 July 2007
India will lose more than she might gain if the proposed civilian
nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States is accepted in its present form,
cautions a premier nuclear scientist. He warns that India's three-stage nuclear
programme, which is geared towards harnessing thorium, is a prized jewel that cannot
be sacrificed at the altar of politics.
Dr AN Prasad, a former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, who has been
associated with India's reprocessing programme since its inception in the late 1950s,
maintains that reprocessing is crucial to the three-stage nuclear programme and the idea
of setting up a dedicated reprocessing plant will not make matters any better for the Fast
Breeder Reactor (FBR) programme.
These comments from a scientist, who is widely considered as the father of
reprocessing technology in India, come at a time when an Indian delegation led by
National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and
Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar is in Washington for talks with the
US Administration. Incidentally, Dr Prasad's remarks coincide with the second
anniversary of the July 18, 2005 India-US Joint Statement.
Dr Prasad, who addressed a gathering in New Delhi on Tuesday, says that the US's
reluctance to give reprocessing rights to India should be seen as an attempt by the US to
slow down India's three-stage nuclear programme. "Our three-stage programme will be
hampered ... [it] will get a very, very bad beating," he cautions. He is certain that the
proposed India-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement is a win-win situation for the
US. "They are not losing anything," he says.
According to him, the US will get access to the large Indian (nuclear) market. The US
nuclear industry, which has remained dormant after the 1979 Three Mile accident, will be
revived. The US will also use the Indian human resource and India's scientific talent to
redesign nuclear reactors and recycle them back to India. Also, the civilian nuclear
cooperation agreement will give shape to US's "obsession" to bring India into the NPT
(Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) fold.
Dr Prasad adds, "India continued her Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) programme despite the
sanctions [and] India could get a firm hold on thorium utilisation and become
unstoppable. They do not want to give India any more time to get stronger ... because
sanctions were not working, they think this is the time to stop India."
The scientist says that uranium shortage is not a big deal. "Even with limited uranium
reserves, [we can use it] in such a way that we get to thorium utilisation," he explains.
He estimates that 10,000 mega watt of energy can be used to get 3,00,000 MW if thorium
utilisation becomes a reality. "Given time, we can reach our goal. The US does not want
Indian policy makers to show any patience at all," he observes.
He emphasises that reprocessing is at the "core of (India's) scheme of things". He says
India has been reprocessing for several decades now and India is today in a position to
give reprocessing technology and assistance to countries that require it. "India started
work on reprocessing in 1959, a decade before the first nuclear reactor at Tarapur came
into existence. India commissioned her first reprocessing plant in 1965 whereas the
reprocessing plant built with US help in Belgium could be commissioned only in 1970-
1971," he recalls. "Indian scientists have mastered the reprocessing technology on their
own. We cannot give up that right."
Dr Prasad says that the idea of a dedicated reprocessing facility under international
safeguards is "slightly better than the present situation" but it will come with certain
handicaps. "Till now, the safeguards were only in campaign mode but this flexibility will
not be there once it is kept under international safeguards. Also, outages are common in
reprocessing plants. It is difficult to maintain it when it is running, so it will need to be
closed down for maintenance for about three or four months. If there is only one
dedicated plant, it will mean delays (in reprocessing of spent fuel). Again, setting up a
second reprocessing plant is an expensive proposition because the cost goes up," he
explains. "India has shown that reprocessing can be done at a fraction of the
international cost ... that is not palatable to the US [so] they are trying to get at our
reprocessing strength," he asserts.
The current reprocessing facility, designed and developed by Indian scientists, is not
under international safeguards and can be used to reprocess spent fuel derived from
indigenous sources as well as those under global purview. Safeguarded spent fuel is
reprocessed in the plant under full safeguards and once that fuel is washed out, the plant
comes out of the purview of international inspections. So India has the flexibility to
operate the plant on both modes -- for India's own spent fuel and for the fuel under
safeguards.
On future testing, Dr Prasad points out that even the US wants to test new devices like
bunker busters. "Threat perception and design of devices is constantly evolving. Nuclear
devices undergo technical evolution, so no one design is good for all time to come," he
says. He also dismisses American negotiator Dr Ashley Tellis's suggestion that India
can conduct tests using computer simulation. "That won't do," Dr Prasad says with an air
of finality.
Murli Manohar Joshi of BJP says successive governments have deliberately maintained
a shortage of uranium in the country. "[Governments] kept it that way," Mr Joshi
reiterates. In another cryptic assertion, Mr Joshi says certain "forces" are deliberately
putting obstacles in the way of mining uranium. "We know who these forces are ... all
these [agitations] are foreign-inspired so that Indian cannot use uranium," he adds
without elaboration. According to Mr Joshi, India will get 12 thousand extra tonnes of
uranium is mined properly.
According to another source, the tribal unrest against uranium mining in Meghalaya, and
the protests against exploration for uranium ore elsewhere in the country, is being
fomented by certain vested interests. Also, the raw mineral resource was being
smuggled into Bangladesh several years ago. "Bags were seized in Tura and after 11
days came the confirmation that the raw mineral resource was uranium," the source
recalls. "Somebody is buying it somewhere ... somebody is selling it ... somebody is
holding the remote".
Mr Joshi, a former Union Minister of Human Resource Development in the erstwhile NDA
Government, also believes that it will be wrong to think that the proposed India-US
civilian nuclear cooperation agreement is about nuclear energy, energy independence or
energy security. He says, "Energy independence [as a concept] is alright but who will
control this energy because imported reactors will come with intrudive inspection, so
where is the independence ..? The key will be with the US ... energy cooperation is a
Mukhota (mask)."
"[The India-US nuclear deal] is killing brutally ... ruthlessly ... the Indian bomb. The
dedication of Indian scientists is being killed ... [this is] murder of India's nuclear
sovereignty," Mr Joshi continues. "The US wants to control India's nuclear sovereignty
[and] stop further nuclear test [by India but it is silent] on Pakistan and Israel. A
responsible country like India is being pressured while an irresponsible country like
Pakistan is [kept] free."
Mr Joshi is certain that there are no gains for India from a civilian nuclear cooperation
agreement with the US insofar as energy, future research or nuclear sovereignty are
concerned. "[Our] bureaucrat-Prime Minister was taken in by the red carpet welcome he
was accorded in Washington ... jaal mein phas gaye (caught in a web)," he says. "It was
never the US's intention to give parity to India or accept India as a nuclear weapons
state. If BJP comes to power and it has the powers to [repudiate or rescind], it will cancel
this India-US nuclear deal."
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