The Hindu : National : ‘Uranium shortage serious issue’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 24, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

‘Uranium shortage serious issue’

Special Correspondent

Government conveying picture that nuclear deal can bail India out: Karat

“Govt. trying to convey through media that there is not enough uranium”
Seeks clarification on plans to address gap between demand and supply

NEW DELHI: Reiterating their total opposition to the India-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation, the Left parties on Friday said their discussions with the government were still going on.

“At the last meeting of the UPA-Left joint committee on the nuclear deal, we were told that there is a shortage of uranium and reactors were working at 50 per cent of their level of production,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here.

The next meeting of the committee on the nuclear deal is scheduled for May 28. “We have not yet completed our discussions with the government on the IAEA safeguards. We have not gotten the text of the agreement but have studied whatever we could get hold of. We have to see what the government says and then decide,” Mr. Karat said.

After a meeting of the four Left parties that reviewed the progress of the discussions on the nuclear issue with the government, Mr. Karat said the government was trying to convey through the media that in the absence of the India-U.S. nuclear deal the country was not getting enough uranium to operate the reactors.

“We are unable to understand how the shortage is taking place. The government is conveying a picture that the Indian nuclear energy programme is short of fuel and only the India-U.S. nuclear deal can bail India out of this shortage. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Convener of the UPA-Left Committee on the nuclear deal, made such remarks while stating the case for seeking the IAEA Board’s approval for the India-specific safeguards agreement,” Mr. Karat said.

He said the question was if the shortage of uranium was a temporary one or created through lack of proper planning.

“Neither the Department of Atomic Energy nor the government has given the nation any explanation of how this current shortage has come about, when we have known reserves in the country to sustain a nuclear energy programme of at least 10,000 MW,” a statement by the Left parties said.

Serious issue

The shortage of uranium was a “serious issue” for which the government owed an explanation to the country, the Left parties said.

It was disturbing to “paint the temporary shortage as a permanent scarcity in order to push the India-U.S. nuclear deal.”

They sought clarification from the government as to what it was doing to address the gap between the demand for uranium and supply.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National

News Update

Stories in this Section