Tsunami checks for coastal N-plants

India's latest nuclear power plant on the coast of Arabian Sea in Gujarat will be tested for tsunami-like disasters, following the radiation leakage at Fukushima in Japan in early March.

Updated on: Mar 27, 2011, 24:16:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's latest nuclear power plant on the coast of Arabian Sea in Gujarat will be tested for tsunami-like disasters, following the radiation leakage at Fukushima in Japan in early March.

The expert appraisal committee (EAC) of the environment ministry gave in-principle approval to two new nuclear plants in Bhavnagar in Gujarat and Mandla in Madhya Pradesh in mid-February.

Now, the ministry wants that the environment impact assessment of the 6,000-MW plant in Jaspara village in Gujarat to cover tsunami-proof systems.

The ministry has constituted a group, headed by former department of ocean development secretary AM Muthunayagam, to propose additional safeguards against tsunami.

"We want to find out whether the nuclear plants in coastal areas will have enough safety systems to bear the impact," a ministry official said.

The Bhavnagar plant will have 877 hectares and will require about 47,760 million litres of water for cooling the nuclear towers. The water will be drawn from the Arabian Sea.

The 1,400-MW Mandla plant will have a 447-hectare complex, of which one-fourth is forest.

The biggest hitch will be relocating 195 families residing there.

Under the Forest Rights Act, residents' consent is a must.

Already, in-principle approval has been given to another nuclear power plant at Fatehabad in Haryana, while the ministry is considering Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh and Bhavnagar in Gujarat for two new plants.

The EAC on November 2010 gave final approval to world's biggest nuclear 9,600-MW plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra, resulting in a wave of local and international protests. Similar protests are expected at other sites, too, once land acquisition begins.

Once all these plants become operational in five to seven years, India will get over 20,000 MW of power.

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

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