The Hindu : National : How much nuclear power and by when, asks BJP

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Sunday, Aug 03, 2008
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How much nuclear power and by when, asks BJP

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Now that India’s safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency has been approved, the Bharatiya Janata Party said the government should clarify how many kilowatts of nuclear power the country can hope to generate and by when.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said the government should come out with all the details of its plan for power generation using nuclear reactors. How much capital would need to be invested and what would be the unit cost of power?

Perpetual safeguards

Criticising the safeguards agreement arrived at in Vienna on August 1, Mr. Javadekar said 14 of a total of 22 nuclear reactors in India would be under “perpetual safeguards” open to international inspections. India, he said, under former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi to Atal Bihari Vajpayee had resisted signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the IAEA accord was a “kind of signature on the NPT.”

The BJP, he said “wanted a strategic partnership with the United States, not a strategic subservience,” which the 123 agreement would bring about.

Although at Vienna it was an India-specific safeguards agreement that was penned, Mr. Javadekar claimed the document was “identical to those offered to non-nuclear weapon states.”

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