New Delhi: By granting greater access to the IAEA to monitor civilian atomic programme, India wants to send a strong signal to the international community that it is a “serious and responsible” nuclear power amid its keenness to become a member of the NSG.
President Pranab Mukherjee, in his address to Parliament earlier this month, had said, “The international civil nuclear agreements will be operationalised and nuclear power projects for civilian purposes will be developed.”
Read: IAEA gets red carpet from India
As external affairs minister in 2008, Mr Mukherjee had committed to the NSG on peaceful uses of nuclear energy that was significant in ensuring the waiver. In its communication to the IAEA in 2008, India had told the agency under the joint statement on “Implementation of the India-US” in 2005, that it will file a declaration regarding its civilian facilities with the IAEA and also place its civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards.
“India will undertake signing and adhering to an additional protocol with respect to civilian nuclear facilities,” it told the IAEA.
