Living with nuclear power

Living with nuclear power

Kudankulam Atomic Power Project, being built with Russian assistance, is not expected to be completed before 2008 but there are already noises of protest largely from non-governmental organisations. The Department of Atomic Energy and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited are fighting a battle to establish the need for nuclear power, and secondly, the viability of the project in terms of economics and safety. D N MOORTY reports from Kudankulam on the project its evolution and future.

Very few of the about 40,000 living in the villages of Edinthakarai (under Vijayapati panchayat), Kudankulam in Radhapuram taluka of Thirunelveli-Kattabomman district are unaware of Chernobyl. Only 32 people died there, P. Ezhilarasu, president of the Kudankulam village panchayat told this newspaper, and that is because of negligence. They also know the Three-Mile Island mishap in US. People there have also heard of the recent Tokaimura accident where an uncontrolled chain reaction was set off. Yet, theyavidly await the arrival of the two units of 1000 Mwe plants producing electricity from nuclear steam from the reactors to be established there. It doesn't matter to them that these are Russian in their design. Not all, of course, are confident that the two Russian VVER (Russian nomenclature for Pressurised Water ReactorsPWRs) 1000/392 plants that are to be set up here are totally safe. However, the objections to the plant it has been on the drawing boards since November 20,1988 when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Gorbachev of USSR signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement in New Delhi for construction of this plant on a cooperative basis mainly come from anti-nuke activists.

The selection of the site for the nuclear reactors is a coup of sorts for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). In appropriating 929 hectares of for the project and another 150 hectares for the township in coastal Tamil Nadu between Thirunelveli and Kanyakumari, not a single house had to be displaced.Hemmed by the two panchayats mentioned above, the 5-km coastal stretch of land is barren, with no vegetation or agriculture worth the name. The upper layer to a depth of some 7 metres is mainly limestone crust and below it is rocky land. It is in Seismic Zone II, which means that there are no faults in the area and is devoid of induced seismic activity because of the absence of lakes or dams or the like.

In the acquired area there existed no population and the density of population within a 30-km radius is extremely low. An estimated 10,000 houses comprising of about 40,000 inhabitants dot the perimeter in isolated concentrations.

Of this complement, 80 per cent of employable workforce is jobless in Kudankulam and about 60 per cent in the fishing village of Edinthakari. In Kudankulam, womenfolk generally execute the main vocation of rolling beedies. These are the people targeted by both the anti-nuke groups and the NPCIL for support and by the dint of this conflict the people in the area are reasonablyaware of the safety and other factors related to nuclear plants.

Over the years, the nuclear establishment has virtually launched a propaganda blitz to woo the villagers. The villagers have been taken to Kalpakkam and made to interact with fisher folk and villages there. Seminars for the laymen including Russian delegations are periodically held. The five barrier-safety zone is painstakingly explained to the villagers. Generation of local employment, alternative agriculture that would be spin-offs from the project are held forth as sustaining means of better livelihood and the villagers have not been immune to these prospects.

Interestingly, the DAE-NPCIL assault is not restricted to mere talk. It has engaged the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation for research into soil profiles and greening the barren belt at a cost of Rs 50 lakh per year. The activities of the Foundation are very visible to the villagers and they have really begun to believe that the DAE means what it says and by the year 2010 the entire beltwould be greened and blossom into an agro-industrious area.

For Kudankulam, ignored by successive state governments, the nuclear power plant has suddenly become a messiah that would spell the end of the prolonged economic and social stagnation the belt has seen. There is a saying in the area: Thirunelveli is the southern border of Tamil Nadu as far as the Dravida Munnetra Khazhagam government led by M. Karunanidhi is concerned.

It is this neglect the DAE is addressing and in the process has held out the promise of all round development of the region as the price to pay for the nuclear power plant and allay the local fears with regard to safety. Attached to this package, also, is the prospect of the cheapest power in the South currently projected at Rs 2.39 per unit.

However, the DAE's coup de grace is generating the anticipation of ending the perennial drought in the area by making available water to thirsty Kudankulam. The belt has virtually no rainfall worth speaking of. When it does rain, the maximumrainfall is recorded to be between 100 to 400 mm. At the outskirts where a little ground water is available, the bore wells have to be dug deeper than 1,000 feet. The villagers pay as much as Rs 2 per pot of water today. And it is the problem of water that is going to determine whether the 1000x2 Mwe Russian-aided Kudankulam Atomic Power Station is going to have a smooth passage.

Tomorrow: The science and politics of Kudankulam water