Russia defends quality of Kudankulam nuclear equipment

Plant likely to go critical by May first week

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Russia on Thursday said that the Kudankulam nuclear plant is likely to go critical by the first week of May provided it gets clearance from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board while defending the quality of equipments used in the two Kudankulam reactors.

Consul general of the Russian Federation in southern India Nikolay A Listopadov told Express that there is no question of substandard equipment being installed in Kudankulam reactor. “Only four valves were found to be substandard which is like a drop in the ocean. Of the thousands of valves, one or two may be substandard. This happens occasionally everywhere due to the enormous nature of equipment. The regulatory board is inspecting it. Substandard equipments won’t be installed,” he said.

NPCIL says the four valves are part of passive core flooding system. The two 1000-MW reactors in Kudankulam are being built with Russian help.

The Russian consul general blamed the Western groups for engineering protests in Kudankulam against the nuclear reactors.

He also said that even the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has accepted that there was foreign involvement behind the protests. Listopadov also said that the competition and rivalry over Russia’s nuclear ties with India could be one of the reason behind the external involvement in the protests.

“It should be clear that Kudankulam is a Indian power plant and built by Indian workers and Indian scientists. The protests are an internal affair of India and I hope it will be resolved soon,” he added.

Listopadov also said Russian scientists along with their Indian counterparts are working to commission the nuclear plant soon.  “The Kudankulam reactor would attain criticality in the first week of May. After that some tests will be undertaken before it starts producing power. However, it is up to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to decide on the date as well as clearances,” he added.