N-liability Bill: Menon fails to get BJP leaders on board

The government’s effort to secure the BJP’s support for a Bill that seeks to cap at Rs 2, 200 crore — with the operator paying Rs 500 crore — liability in case of a nuclear accident have failed.

The government’s effort to secure the BJP’s support for a Bill that seeks to cap at Rs 2, 200 crore — with the operator paying Rs 500 crore — liability in case of a nuclear accident have failed.

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National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon met top BJP leaders on Wednesday to persuade them to back the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, likely to be brought in Parliament when it meets again on April 12, but couldn’t convince them.

The government is likely to talk to the Left, but a breakthrough is unlikely. The government had deferred tabling the Bill on Monday following the BJP and the Left’s opposition.

Menon asked BJP leaders — Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and S S Ahluwalia — not to oppose the Bill, which he said was needed to ensure compensation to victims in case of a nuclear mishap. The BJP leaders stood firm, rejecting the Bill in its present form.

Some weeks back, Menon had met Jaitley and last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had spoken to Swaraj, but couldn’t get their support.

In fixing Rs 500 crore as the maximum liability for an operator, the government has freed the supplying American companies of all legal responsibilities in case of a nuclear accident, the BJP has alleged. And that too when the country had experienced an industrial mishap of the magnitude of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

The operators will be the public sector unless the Atomic Energy Act is amended to open the sector to private companies. But even if foreign players are allowed in, the Rs 500-crore liability is a sellout to US interests, the BJP has alleged. The liability is 23 times higher in the US.

The government is said to be willing to discuss a graded compensation regime but given the BJP and Left’s opposition, it will have to explain the need for such a law and seek the support of smaller parties to introduce the Bill in the Lok Sabha. It has the support of 274 UPA MPs and seven others in the 543-member House.

In a note to Congress MPs, Menon called for a national law so that India could sign the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage and start nuclear commerce with US firms.