Speaking to a group of presspersons from Goa on a visit to the Kaiga nuclear power project, project director, P K Sharma pointed out that the US did not directly provide technical aid to our nuclear programme. ``The cirtical components were got from developed countries through third party suppliers,'' said Sharma. However, he refused to explain the role of specific countries in India's nuclear power programme.

Sharma noted that India was initially dependent on foreign sources for critical hardware and softwares to monitor nuclear reactions. ``These were got by the Electronic Corporation of India and the BARC, Mumbai. NPC officials have also succeeded in getting international scientists and technicians to inspect their facilities. ``A visiting scientist noted that the concrete we developed to build thecore of our reactor is the best he had seen,'' Sharma informed.

The Kaiga project will began functioning from April 1999 and will produce 220 mega watts of power. Each of the six units at Kaiga will produce five million units of electricity per day. The reactors require 58 tonnes of natural uranium as initial fuel. Natural uranium will be used in pressurised heavy water reactors and plutonium will be obtained as a by-product. This plutonium and thorium will be used in fast reactors in the second phase of the programme which will result in uranium-233 as by-product. Uranium-233 will be used as a fuel in the third phase of the programme. India's reserves of uranium and thorium are in the region of 70,000 tonnes and 3,60,000 tonnes respectively.