'123' will allow India to buy fuel outside US: Sibal
Kolkata, Sept. 29 (PTI): The Indo-US civil nuclear deal would give India the flexibility to buy nuclear fuel not only from the US, but also from countries like France, Russia or even Australia.
Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said today the bilateral agreement, also called "123 agreement", would not make it binding on India to buy nuclear fuel from just the US.
He said that to support India's economic growth and development in the coming decades, the 123 agreement was necessary. It would help the country in overcoming an energy crisis, since there would be huge gap between demand and supply.
"The 123 agreement is fuel for India's growth," Sibal told an interactive meeting organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.
Sibal said the agreement would also give India, unlike other countries like China, the right to reprocess spent fuel needed for augmenting nuclear power generating capacity.
He said that India had not bartered anything and the deal would not undermine the country's sovereignty.
Asked for his comment on veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu's statement that there would be no compromise between the UPA and the Left on the Indo-US nuke deal, Sibal said "I will not like to say anything on this."
To a query why the Left parties were opposing the deal, Sibal said India was a democracy and everybody had the right to speak.
While nuclear power generation in India at the moment was only three per cent of the total generation at 4300 MW, the project generation for year 2022 was 33,000 MW, which would raise to 63,000 MW by 2032.
"The deal is about bijlee (power) and not Bush," Sibal reiterated.
Sibal said the waiver of the 123 clauses of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 would give India the benefit of procuring nuclear fuel from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which was an exclusive club.
