India has serious problems with supplying sufficient power to the national grid. Prime Minister Modi is dedicated to the construction of more nuclear power reactors to increase available power for civilian and industrial uses. Russia has agreed to assist India in the construction of twelve nuclear power plants. Westinghouse is currently negotiating to build six power reactors in India. India has recently signed nuclear trade agreements with Canada, Australia and Japan. While the central government may be sold on nuclear power, there are critics of India's safety record with existing nuclear power reactors.
Last year the Auditor-General of India found that sixty percent of regulatory inspections for operating nuclear power plants in India were up to one hundred and fifty three days late or did not happen at all.
The bipartisan Indian Public Accountability Committee has just issued a "scathing" report to India's Parliament that was very critical of the fact that decades have passed during which India was supposed to create an independent nuclear regulatory agency. The report pointed out that India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is "not an independent statutory body but rather a subordinate agency of the government."
The report said that "The failure to have an autonomous and independent regulator is clearly fraught with grave risks, as brought out poignantly in the report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission." "Although AERB maintains liaison with international nuclear organisations, it has been slow in adopting international benchmarks and good practices in the areas of nuclear and radiation operation. " The AERB "cannot set or enforce rules for radiation and nuclear safety in India." In some areas of concern, there are no existing rules. Some smaller facilities that deal with radioactive materials have no licences or regulatory oversight at all. The maximum fine that can be imposed on nuclear operators by the AERB is equivalent to nine U.S. dollars.
The AERB was charged with creating a comprehensive nuclear and radiation policy for India in 1983 but it has not yet issued such a policy. The report stated that "The absence of such a policy at macro level can hamper micro-level planning of radiation safety in the country." The report concluded that India was not ready to cope with a major nuclear emergency.
"Off-site emergency exercises carried out highlighted inadequate emergency preparedness even for situations where the radiological effects of an emergency origination from nuclear power plants are likely to extend beyond the site and affect the people around."
These problems in India are a perfect illustration of the concern that I have with the current push to sell nuclear power reactors to developing countries. With lax regulation and widespread corruption, future major nuclear accidents are almost guaranteed. And, as the report pointed out for India, these countries are less prepared to cope with nuclear accidents than major industrial nations which have serious difficulties of their own in dealing with nuclear disasters. The promotion of nuclear power reactors to countries ill prepared to deal with the complexity of managing nuclear power generation is a threat to the whole world.
