Anti-nuke activists slam NPCIL delay
The blame for this delay of the first two reactors was attributed to the people's protest at Idinthakarai since September 2011.
TIRUNELVELI: The delayed attainment of criticality of the second 1,000 Mwe unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power project (KKNPP) by eight years from its originally scheduled date of commissioning has escalated the project cost by around Rs 2050 crore. The first unit of KKNPP that is now under operation was also delayed by five years from its originally scheduled date of December 2008. The blame for this delay of the first two reactors was attributed to the people’s protest at Idinthakarai since September 2011.
However, according to S.P. Udayakumar, who spearheaded the ‘People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE)’, this is not true. He said that the reason for the delay lay with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), whose projects in Rajasthan and Kakrapar too are moving at a snail’s pace though there are no protests there.
Udayakumar pointed out that all the five new reactors including the second unit of KKNPP of NPCIL under construction could not be commissioned as per their original scheduled time, which raised a host of issues for both power developers and environmentally conscious citizens. Will NPCIL, the project proponent of these nuclear power plants in the country explain to the tax payers’ the reason for the ‘inordinate delay’ of these projects that led to a loss of several thousand crore of rupees to the exchequer, asked Udayakumar.