BackIndia not to water down nuclear liability law
Department of atomic energy says contracts will have to be approved by a competent authority of the government, will be fully consistent with Indian law
Premium(Adnan Abidi/Reuters)
New Delhi: India will not water down its nuclear liability law to enable international vendors to enter the domestic nuclear power market, the department of atomic energy said on Thursday.
The government had repeatedly said that contracts between foreign vendors and Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd, which would be the operator of nuclear power plants in the country, “will be subject to Indian law", the department said.
“The contracts, which will have to be approved by the competent authority of the government, will be fully consistent with Indian law," its statement said. “There is no question of Indian law being violated or diluted."
“The projects will have to meet the highest standards of safety and the power generated will have to be competitive with other sources of nuclear as well as alternative forms of power," the department said. “This will apply to our projects with Russia, France and the United States."
The atomic energy department’s statement followed reports in several Indian newspapers on Thursday, including The Hindu, that following pressure from the US government, India was to water down a key provision of its nuclear liability law that would hold US reactor suppliers liable in the event of an accident caused by faulty or defective equipment.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will leave for the US on 25 September for a visit to Washington on 27 September, during which he is expected to meet US President Barack Obama.
American suppliers Westinghouse Electric Corp. and General Electric Co. have been lobbying hard with Washington and Delhi to have this provision amended, The Hindu report said. And though India said there would be no dilution, the government was looking to use advice provided by solicitor general Goolam Vahanvati that it was for the operator of a nuclear plant in India, or Nuclear Power Corp. of India, to decide whether it wanted to exercise the right of legal recourse.
The department had sought Vahanvati’s opinion given that many suppliers—both foreign and domestic—had raised a number of questions about the manner in which the civil liability law and its rules will apply to their contracts.
India and the US signed a landmark civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2008 after three years of talks, which lifted a 34-year-old international embargo against India sourcing nuclear power plants and associated technology from the international market. India then signed preliminary pacts with France in 2010 and is negotiating another with Westinghouse to set up nuclear power plants in the country.
Nuclear Power Corp.’s negotiations with Russia for further reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, where the Russian government is already constructing two plants under pacts signed in 1998, were “at an advanced stage", the department said.
“We have to follow the law and the law can only be changed by Parliament," said Ronen Sen, former Indian ambassador to the US.
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