In direct contrast to the hectic activity in Idinthakarai village, where the agitation against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant is being played out, is Anuvijay Township, the residential colony for the 1,000-plus employees of the KKNP, in Chettikulam, a few km from the plant site.
While Idinthakarai is host to regular fasts and sit-ins and loud protests, everything is at a standstill in Anuvijay Township, just like the nuclear plant itself. Since October last year, when mass protests engulfed the area, employees of the plant, along with another 4,000 contractual workers and labourers, haven?t been able to enter the plant complex. Site director for Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) M Kasinath Balaji tells FE that barely 50-60 employees and some support staff enter the plant for maintenance purposes. The plant itself is 99% ready.
However, Balaji maintains that morale is still high among the employees as it seems to be just a matter of time before work resumes. ?It?s a situation of so near yet so far. We were extremely close to actually commissioning the plant but everything got stalled suddenly. However, everyday is a day of hope for us,? he says.
Like the plant complex itself, this township also has a heavy presence of central paramilitary forces. If a hundred arguments were presented against the plant in the agitating villages, Balaji presents a hundred others supporting the safety features of the plant and its necessity. ?People are being told that they will be displaced, that fish will die in the sea and all sorts of unsubstantiated propaganda. There are 20 reactors operating in this country and nowhere has there been such an instance. We have had an impeccable record in commissioning and operating nuclear power plants in India for decades now,? he says.
He adds that trials and tests, including the now infamous hot run trial of August 2011 that sent fear spiraling among the locals, are necessary exercises and are done under extreme conditions to test the limits of the facility, and such extreme limits are actually never encountered in a functioning plant. ?It?s as simple as fabricating a pressure cooker. The hot run trial was done to test the thermal hydraulics of the reactor systems and safety systems and it is a regulation at thermal power plants as well. There is just no basis for fear and apprehension,? he says.
However, Balaji still concedes that the public information and awareness initiatives might have lacked somewhere, because of which ?misinformation was easily spread?. He says efforts are now on to enhance public outreach initiatives by the NPCIL. ?We have been trying to inform people that all safety provisions that were missing at Fukushima have been included here. This is not a first generation reactor like in Fukushima. What we have is the most advanced technology yet and the facility is made in such a way that it is foolproof to any calamity?natural or man-made,? he says.
On the fears pertaining to fishing, Balaji says while locals fear that the plant discharge will contaminate the fish, the system is the same as that of a thermal plant, where water discharge from the plant doesn?t ever come in contact with radioactive material. ?As for the prohibition on fishing up to 500 metres in the waters, that has nothing to do with the operations of the plant. That is merely a security cordon and a state government requirement. That is not in our hands. If the state government tomorrow reduces it, we?ll do it.?
A team has been set up to manage the awareness programme.
The local media has already been invited to the plant by NPCIL, and Balaji says even village folk would be invited and taken around the plant to allay their fears and show them that ?nothing is secret?.