Kudankulam plant hits coastal wall

An environment ministry committee has declined coastal clearance for new nuclear reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, on the grounds of its impact on marine life and overall safety aspects.

Updated on: Oct 17, 2011, 23:19:06 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

An environment ministry committee has declined coastal clearance for new nuclear reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, on the grounds of its impact on marine life and overall safety aspects.

Coastal clearance is mandatory to operationalise environment clearances granted to four new reactors for generating 4,000 MW of power, in addition to existing two at Kudankulam in 2008 and 2009.

The environment clearance, however, allows the government to start the process of acquiring land for the project, but it got stuck in Kudankulam following protest by locals. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to intervene last week with an assurance that the plant will have best safety features.

The project proponent Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) told ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) recently that the plant has most “advanced safety features” and first of its kind in the world.

“Active safety systems are having a backup of passive safety systems,” the minutes of the EAC meeting quotes the corporation as claiming.

The committee was, however, not impressed with what the NPCIL said and sought documentary evidence for the same while declining to approve the project. “The documentary evidence shall be submitted in support of this statement, which has a wider ramification in the context of what is happening around the world on similar developments,” the EAC told NPCIL.

In another setback, the EAC rejected NPCIL’s proposal to construct an open channel for outfall of waste water taken from sea for the purpose of cooling the nuclear condensers.

The corporation had proposed that 12,000 cubic metres of water will be lifted from Indian Ocean for condenser cooling and discharged back into the sea. “Due to various environmental problems, including adverse impact on marine life, the present proposal is not acceptable,” the EAC said, while asking the corporation to consider a pipeline for disposal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.