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BJP to support India-US nuclear deal if tests allowed

	June 09, 2008

Uranium shortage starves N-plants



A day after the BJP asked the UPA Government to take a clear stand on the India-US nuclear agreement, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, added another twist to the nuclear debate by offering to support the deal if it carried no restrictions on India carrying out atomic tests in future. “We do not basically oppose the nuclear agreement”, Advani said at an ASSOCHAM function in New Delhi on June 2. The BJP was not against securing nuclear fuel from the United States but wanted the 123 Agreement to be redrafted to insulate India from the Hyde Pact, Advani said.



Political observers note that much of what Advani said has been the official line of the BJP but by the emphatic assertion that the party was not opposed to the deal, the BJP could hope to politically exploit the situation. While this could appease the BJP’s liberal vote bank, it would also highlight the Government’s helpless in taking on the Left parties.



The timing of the BJP’s renewed focus on nuclear agreement is significant in the face of the Government sending confusing signals about its intent. A section of the Government has sent unmistakable signals through backdoor media briefings that the nuclear deal was not a closed chapter and even if the Left were to topple the Government, the elections would be advanced only by a few months. While this could represent the viewpoint of Dr. Manmohan Singh, who is seen as the architect of the India-US agreement and who has very little hope of being renominated as the Prime Ministerial candidate in the next general election, the Congress High Command is yet to make up its mind on risking an advanced Lok Sabha poll when price rise is a major issue. By challenging the Government to go ahead with the deal, the BJP has placed the onus on the Prime Minister, whose leadership and authority have been repeatedly questioned in the past.



Speaking from the same platform, ASSOCHAM annual general body meeting, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the Government was trying to complete the nuclear deal in its present tenure, but insisted there was no timeframe to operationalise it. He expressed concern that India has been prevented from accessing high technology commerce because of its position on the nuclear issue. Speaking in Chennai earlier, he said the UPA-Left Committee will meet soon to discuss the deal.



Uranium shortage

Some media reports say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will make a last effort to rescue the nuclear deal from limbo and call an all-party conference to seek the understanding and support of political leaders.

At this meeting, Dr. Singh is expected to highlight the shortage of uranium the nuclear power plants are facing to stress an early clearance of the 123 Agreement with the United States. The issue was raised at the last meeting of the UPA-Left panel on the nuclear issue, but the Left leaders remained unconvinced and blamed the Government for creating an artificial shortage.



Now, the Minister of State for Power, Jairam Ramesh, has given a clear picture of the acute shortage of uranium which is badly hitting power generation in the six nuclear plants in the country. He said the generation is not even half of the current total installed capacity of 3770 MW. Though the Government is working on new initiatives, the demand for uranium, which is going to shoot up in the coming years to meet the nuclear power generation goal of 20,000 MW by 2020, could be met only from external resources. He explained that as against the installed nuclear capacity of 3770 MW, only 45-50% of it is being utilized due to scarcity of uranium, with some plants not able to generate even 30 per cent of its capacity. Ironically, two new units – the 220 MW unit of Kaiga IV in Karnataka and the 220 MW unit of the Rajasthan Atomic Power [RAP] station, are lying idle due to the same reason. And, by March next year, another 220 MW unit of the RAP would be ready, whose fate also depends on the availability of nuclear fuel.



Underlining that the nuclear deal could be the only answer to meet India’s uranium requirement, Ramesh said though the Centre through the Department of Atomic Energy [DAE] was conceptualizing new projects to increase India’s uranium production, the nuclear deal was necessary to ensure unhindered supply of uranium from big foreign suppliers including Australia, Canada and Russia.



Explaining the steps taken at the domestic level to increase the supply of uranium, the Minister said, a new processing unit is coming up at Turmadih in Jharkhand that would start supplying nuclear fuel within the next six months. Similarly, work has commenced on the $270 million Tummalapalle uranium mining project in Andhra Pradesh but it will take three years to commission.



Ramesh said efforts were on to start a uranium mining project in the North-Eastern State of Meghalaya which has huge deposits of nuclear fuel that could take care of the country’s needs to some extent. However, there was opposition from locals and environment groups, he said.



Even as India scouts for nuclear fuel from the US and elsewhere, analysts say India is sitting on massive, untapped reserves of uranium, hundreds of tonnes of which have been discovered over the past couple of years – adding to the over one lakh tonnes already identified in Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. India’s atomic energy establishment has done next to nothing to tap deposits identified upto 15 years ago. Mining is yet to begin at several sites explored, identified and handed through the 1990s by the Atomic Minerals Directorate, the government’s uranium exploration arm, to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd.



Some untapped reserves in Meghalaya contain the best available quality of uranium in Turamdih mines in Jharkhand and Domiasiat mines in Meghalaya. The reserves in Domiasiat, 130 kilometres south of Shillong in a rain-soaked region, were discovered in 1984 by the Atomic Energy Minerals Division after which they were handed over to the Uranium Corporation of India in 1991. But, even a final report was not ready a decade later. “We are waiting government approval after environmental clearance has come in”, said the Corporation’s Chairman.



Turamdih is located in Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region, across rolling green pastures and criss-crossed by the Swarnarekha River. The AMD officials discovered uranium deposits in Turamdih as far back as 1969. The Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. [UCIL] began constructing the mine in 1989, but in 1992, work was abruptly suspended with the UCIL saying it had enough fuel for power plants. UCIL kept it shut over the next ten years even though by the mid-1990s, the Nuclear Power Corporation had perfected the art of making reactors indigenously. So, new nuclear power plants were about to be built but there was no uranium to run them, and yet, officials did not respond to the spiralling crisis. In 2002 it was finally decided to reopen Turamdih. Mining began only late last year, but milling facilities to crush the uranium to be made into fuel, are still not ready. Indian mines currently produce about 200 tonnes a year whereas the country’s requirement is at least 510 tonnes a year.







The grim situation on the availability of domestic uranium was known from the late 1950 and early 1960s and hence Homi Bhabha’s focus on the three-stage plan which in the final stage would use thorium, available in plenty in India. But, mature thorium technology is at least some 30-40 years away and to reach that, India has to pass through the first phase of 50,000 MW of light water and heavy water reactors and the second phase of fast breeders. India cannot do this unless it signs the nuclear deal with the US, concludes the IAEA safeguards and obtains a waiver from the NSG.

The main sources of uranium are in Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and the US. Assuming that augmentation of nuclear power in India is necessary to provide the right mix – say 10% of generated power in 20 years – one major benefit of the nuclear deal will be to open the supply doors since “friendly diplomacy” or the IBSA axis alone will not serve the purpose. With a change in government, Australia has had second thoughts on supplying the material to a country that is not a signatory to the NPT.

Political observers say at an all-party conference Prime Minister Singh proposes to convene to seek the support of political leaders for going ahead with the implementation of the nuclear deal with the US, and explain the adverse impact the failure to go ahead with the nuclear deal will have on the country’s future civil nuclear programme. The Prime Minister should explain to political leaders the full international diplomatic implications of India’s failure to go ahead with the deal. As remarked by strategic affairs analyst K. Subrahmanyam, the proposed nuclear deal is not an issue concerning merely bilateral Indo-US relations. Russia, France and other major industrial powers have a stake in it. If the deal is abandoned at this stage, India’s credibility with all major powers, the IAEA and the 45 nations of the NSG will be affected. The Indian leadership would let down not only the American President but the leaders of the UK, Russia, France and Germany and other major countries who have publicly supported the deal. Future Indian Prime Ministers will find it very difficult to repair the damage inflicted on the country’s international credibility.



Some of the problems with the nuclear deal which have been pointed out are: the opening up of the power reactors to international inspection; the division of the nuclear facilities into civil and military categories; possible incursion of the US with its predatory industries; and finally the enforcement of an embargo in the case of further testing. Some of these conditions are built into the Hyde Act. Implied in the objections is the general idea of sovereignty, which is fast disappearing even without the mention of globalization. But, political observers ask, “Have we not relied on oil from the Middle East for the past 50 years to meet almost 70% of our requirements?”