Gopalakrishnan, who was addressing a press conference after the second day session of the national conference on health and environment in the capital on Wednesday, stated that usually the Russian-made reactors are not of globally accepted standards and some parts of it needed replacement by systems manufactured in the Western countries. He cited that these parts could be replaced by certain systems manufactured by the German company Siemens. But as India has not signed both the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Western countries are not prepared to export their technology to India and India has, therefore, no options but to manage with the imported Russian atomic reactors. These two atomic reactors are scheduled to be installed inTamil Nadu. Gopalakrishnan is scheduled to chair the concluding day's session on effects of radiological pollution on health tomorrow.

The national conference on health and environment organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) will on the concluding day deliberate on the findings of the studies on atomic bomb survivors in Japan, health effects of fission products from Chernobyl and Kerala radiation genetic study. All these studies have revealed that there are no safe dose of radiation, the effects at lower dose, like a single exposure of 500 mrad, is higher than what has been officially accepted and the genetic effects are more prominent than somatic effects.

Fortunately in India, there is enough scope for reducing the exposure to radiation without forgoing the benefits through proper regulatory mechanism. But such a regulatory mechanism is sadly non-existent in the country. The conference is scheduled to discuss a paper on radiological pollutions created by burning of coal in steam andpower generation units and the need for regular monitoring of radiological pollution in and around thermal plants. This paper is to be presented by U C Mishra of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

The conference is also scheduled to discuss a case study of disease and congenital deformity pattern in villages located near Rajasthan atomic power plant at Rawatbhata near Kota. It has been noted that there has been an extraordinary rise in congenital deformities, miscarriages, one day deaths, still births, solid tumours, chronic diseases. The paper, however, stated that unavailability of reliable radiation data was a big constraint for people's monitoring efforts.

Effects of radiological pollution from Jaduguda mines and preparedness and response measures for radiological emergencies in India are also slated for discussion. The conference on the concluding day will discuss environmental changes and its effects on nutrition, indoor air pollution and health, noise pollution and health, industrial accidents andhealth, environmental changes and health and health effects due to lack of appropriate sanitary and waste disposal systems.