India on Wednesday told the world nuclear body that it is “looking forward to the possibility of opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation”.

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar, who played a key role in negotiating the civil nuclear deal with the US, was addressing the 51st General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna, where he made the forward-looking statement. The statement was circulated here by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

Dr Kakodkar, speaking a day ahead of the crucial meeting of the 45-member Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG), said such an international cooperation should be “sustainable, free from interruptions and consistent with our national policy of closed fuel cycle”.

Dr Kakodkar said with a view to “significantly augment nuclear power generation capacity in the near-term through imports, as an additionality to the ongoing indigenous programme, a Site Selection Committee has evaluated coastal sites in the country for the reactors to be set up in a convoy mode”.

During his entire speech at Vienna, these were the only comments that were related to the Indo-US deal, although he did not make any direct reference to it. This was obvious in the light of the Left’s stern warning to the UPA government not to proceed with the operationalisation of the bilateral agreement.

In fact, Dr Kakodkar's “lips” were “sealed” by the Left which did not want him to even open negotiations with the IAEA authorities to formulate India-specific safeguards agreement, which is the next step in operationalising the Indo-US agreement.

The AEC chief is also not attending the NSG meeting on Thursday on the sidelines of the IAEA meeting.

Dr Kakodkar, however, did not miss the opportunity to market Indian reactors in the unfolding scenario.

“India today is the only country to have a live technology, design and infrastructure for small PHWRs (Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors) with a unit capacity of 220 MWe, which have a great potential for export, particularly to countries with small grids wishing to enter nuclear power generation, with relatively modest investments and infrastructure,” he said.

“Given the large manufacturing base and relatively low manufacturing costs, there is also a potential for India becoming a manufacturing hub for equipment and components for the global nuclear industry,” Dr Kakodkar said.
The DAE chairman said India has been “actively pursuing the design and development of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) which will mainly use thorium based fuel and has several advanced safety features”.

“In fact, this reactor would meet the objectives of a futuristic system that would have to meet higher safety, economics, sustainability, long term radioactive waste minimisation and proliferation resistance goals,” he said, adding that “pre-licensing safety appraisal of this first-of-a-kind design was completed by the Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board”.

Dr Kakodkar said a large Critical Facility for validating reactor physics design of the unique core of the AHWR “is under commissioning” at BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre).