Singur passe, Bengal to house nuke park

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West Bengal may have lost out on Tata’s Nano project and despite a strong opposition from the Left Front against India’s civil nuclear deal with the United States, the state government is making all possible efforts to see that a nuclear power park is set up in the state. The executing agency, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), has already identified Haripur as the possible site for the nuclear power plant in the state.

Site for a similar light nuclear reactor project, to be set up by NPCIL, has been identified at Kowadi in Andhra Pradesh, said government officials. NPCIL is already building two similar nuclear power parks in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

However, despite efforts by the state government, officials said it was feared that the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee will again try and oppose the move. This time around the protests may be marked by possible risk hazards of radiation emitted by such power plants. Mamata has already played a spoilsport whether it was setting up of a SEZ at Nandigram or allowing Tata’s to set up the Nano factory at Singur. Therefore it is significant to see if Mamata will allow the state to house a nuclear power plant or not.

On being contacted, NPCIL officials refused to comment. All they said was NPCIL’s chairman SK Jain has already gone on record saying that two more sites out of the four shortlisted sites for nuclear reactor would be announced shortly by the government. West Bengal is one of the sites, other being

Orissa, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

At Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, NPCIL is putting up four new units of 1,000 mw with technology assistance from Russia. Another similar nuclear reactor project is being set up at Jaitpur in Maharashtra using the technology know-how from France.

The two nuclear power parks to be set up by NPCIL, for which West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh are being touted as the potential sites, may use technology know-how from the United States. NPCIL is already in talks with technology partners from the US including General Electric and Westinghouse.