Nuclear Liability Bill

The UPA government is being questioned for its stand on the Nuclear Liability Bill, which appears to favour US companies to set up nuclear installations in India.

India has an urgent need to boost its nuclear power generation from 4,001 MW to 20,000 MW, almost five-fold, by 2020 to make up for the acute power shortages envisaged in the coming years.

Competing for its $175 billion worth of orders are America’s GE and Westinghouse and France’s Areva and Russian Rosatam Corp.

What is creating confusion and stalling the process is the liability issue.

In case of a nuclear disaster in its plants in India, the liability has been estimated at Rs 2,600 crore.

The Nuclear Liability Bill 2010, its present format, caps the liability of the nuclear plant operator at Rs 500 crore.

Any damage more than this amount will have to be footed by the government.

The Bill also provides that compensation will be decided by a Commission for Nuclear Liability.

Opposition has argued that the operators are getting away with limited liability with the onus falling squarely on the tax payer.

Incidentally the liability cap in China is of Rs 205 crore, and that of Canada is Rs 335 crore and France Rs 575 crore.

Opposition also sees this as a ploy by the UPA government to favour certain US companies.

India, which is operating as many as 18 nuclear plants, urgently needs a law to govern compensation to be paid to victims of nuclear accidents.

Ironically neither does its 1962 Indian Atomic Energy Act have any provision for nuclear accidents nor is India part of any international legal compensation regime, like the Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear damage (CSE).

“We would like to become a member,” says science and technology minister Prithviraj Chauhan, adding that this Bill is a precursor towards the same.

The present Bill, as argued by the UPA government, seeks to cut short litigation by making the operator immediately liable to pay compensation.

Without getting into the long drawn process of determining which supplier was responsible for the accident, it ensures quick redressal and protects the right of the victims above all.

Indian vendors such as Larsen & Tourbo, Walchand, Tatas, GMR and Lanco will also be supplying equipment and shall stand to gain as much as much as any other supplier, the government has pointed.

It is true that if the bill doesn’t get through US companies will find it impossible to bid for the multi million dollar project.

For, unlike in India, France and Russia, in US all nuclear power plants are operated by the private sector and they need this business leeway.

UPA government is aware that no private companies will take on unlimited financial liability, which could make it bankrupt. As India prepares to increase its nuclear power capacity private players have to be drawn in to build capacity.