In India, too, the focus is back on nuclear safety. Curiously, the very day the chain reaction was set off in Japan on September 30, India had an incident of a different sort. The third inner airlock door of the Narora Atomic Power Station-II, weighing about 5 tonnes, fell out of its frame while it was being routinely tested for leaks, because the locking pins were not secured. The Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) press release spoke of human error. The accident has no critical nuclear implications but the reactor had to be shut down. There was no relation between the two accidents but any mechanical defect in nuclear reactors warns against complacency.

One ofthe first to respond to the Tokaimura event was Dr Y.S.R. Prasad, chairman and managing director of the NPC. He categorically stated that Tokaimura-type accidents couldn't happen in Indian power reactors.

Prasad's confidence flows from the indigenous content that has gone into the Canadian clones that serve as PHWRs (pressurised heavy water reactors) here, and the extensive safety infrastructure built into them. The concept of double dome containment a la Kaiga, apart from the three inner barriers around the nuclear core, is unique to Indian reactor design.The safety structure for the workers within the establishment is also pretty evolved. The chances of nuclear fuel reaching unintended criticality are indeed remote and radioactivity will not reach the atmosphere even in the event of a meltdown.

Nevertheless, the possibility exists, admit NPC scientists, projecting the double containment outer domes as evidence of their extreme concern. But they argue that in the existing PHWRs, every element that couldcontribute to a nuclear accident has been foreseen.

Prasad told The Indian Express: "Our design is based on natural uranium and heavy water, theirs on enriched uranium and light water." Before reaching controlled criticality in the reactor, natural uranium cannot become a radiation hazard. Of course, nobody in NPC says the risk factor is zero. Their argument, rather, is that the NPC is doing everything humanly possible to forestall accidents. To oppose nuclear power and related R&D solely on the basis of possible accidents amounts to bigotry, they feel.

Prasad's assurances may be comforting, but the real question thrown up by Tokaimura is still not addressed because the accident took place in a reprocessing facility. Former AERB chief Dr S.D. Soman points out that the real issue is whether such accidents could occur in the plants reprocessing low-grade plutonium obtained from the NPC nuclear power plants in BARC, Trombay or Kalpakkam or, for that matter, in the uranium enrichment plants at BARC andRatanahally in Karnataka. The issue is whether, in the wake of heavy water leaks in MAPS last year and the fortnight-old serious leak in a South Korean CANDU plant, the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad is immune to accidents.

Also moot too is the question of whether nuclear effluent and waste management in India has come of age. Since the Department of Atomic Energy invokes the secrecy clauses under the BARC and Official Secrets Acts with respect to its reprocessing and enriching units our weapons-grade plutonium, tritium and enriched uranium come from there we might not even get to know of safety lapses, if any.

Not so comforting, however, are the categorical statements issued by Atomic Energy Commission and DAE Secretary R. Chidambaram. Reacting to former AERB chief Gopalakrishnan's criticism of our safety culture, he stated in Bangalore that Tokaimura-type accidents are not likely to happen either in the "near future or the far future".

"This is not a nuclear scientist's language," commented aBARC scientist. "The price of nuclear power is eternal vigilance. Such statements reflect either a lack of appreciation of the stringent safety culture that needs to be fostered, or simply reflects complacency born of arrogance. The PHWR technology which we are now mastering is 30 years old. A lot of incidents have taken place in our nuclear reactors, the most serious being the fire in the Narora plant.

The cooling systems have now been replaced, but then we have a five-tonne door falling off the frame. You simply cannot be lax in these matters." For his part, Chidambaram disclosed in his BARC Founder's Day address that a review of plants similar to Tokaimura was underway. This was being done on the AERB's direction as a matter "of abundant caution".

One of the problems of assessment of the safety culture in Indian nuclear reactors is that educated criticism comes from scientists who are seen by DAE to be disgruntled elements. People like Gopalakrishnan or Dr B.K. Subba Rao, who has thrice successfullychallenged BARC designs for India's indigenous nuclear submarine as being unworkable and who eventually came to grief. Their criticism is disregarded out of hand, even when it is logical.

Also, considering the present extent of private sector participation in our nuclear projects and the recent focus on phased privatisation of the industry, the profit factor holds lessons for India.

Not only was safety on the back burner in Tokaimura, CNN reported a similar story on US plants after the accident. The network had acquired documents which showed that officials running a uranium processing plant in Paducah, Kentucky, wantonly ignored suggested safety measures simply because they might have had to pay "hazard money" to workers. The US government itself might well have been aware of this for more than three decades.

A government physician had recommended way back in March 1960 that 300 workers of the plant be tested. The tests were never carried out for fear of the unions, according to CNN. The US Departmentof Energy (DoE) is now investigating "why workers were unwittingly exposed to plutonium and other highly toxic and radioactive substances and whether contractors who ran the plant covered it up." The DoE is also overseeing a costly environmental cleanup of the site.

"A subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources, during a field hearing in Paducah," the report added, "heard tales of radioactive salt on lunch tables, truckloads of uranium shavings being buried as they ignited and burned, and contaminated barrels tossed into ponds." (The Clinton administration is apparently proposing a compensation package for the affected employees.) One reason for the closed-door policy adopted by the DAE, says a sympathetic BARC source, is that the establishment fears an uninformed public outcry which could restrict spending on the sector.

Observed a more critical source: "With the BJP government at the helm with their proactive nuclear doctrine, the climate for increased spending in the nuclearsector is favourable. The monolithic nuclear establishment wants to derive the maximum mileage now. At this point of time, it does not want its credibility questioned.