India cannot abandon N-programme: Ramesh

IANS/Hyderabad

Jairam Ramesh

India needs to learn appropriate lessons from the nuclear disaster in Japan and take additional safeguards, but the country cannot abandon its nuclear energy programme, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said yesterday.
It was still too early to say what impact the Japanese disaster will have on India’s nuclear programme, Ramesh told reporters here.
The minister said the Nuclear Power Corporation and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) have to conduct safety reviews.
"They will have to learn appropriate lessons from what happened in Japan. They will be in touch with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
Ramesh said nuclear energy contributes 3% of the country’s power supply and the objective is to double this to 6% by 2020 and 13% by 2030.
He denied there was any manipulation in the environmental assessment report to show that the Jaitapur nuclear project in Maharashtra does not fall under the high seismic zone.
Ramesh claimed all the information about the various seismic zones in the country was in public domain.
The project was given environmental clearance in November 2010 after the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) conducted environmental assessment.
"The ministry also imposed 35 conditions. But as far as safety and the management of radioactive waste is concerned, it is the responsibility of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board,” he said referring to public concerns in the wake of the crisis in Japan.
"You can’t use environment as a pretext and shoot all issues,” Ramesh said when asked about the public protests against proposed nuclear power plant at Kovvada in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh.
He said issues like land acquisition and compensation were to be dealt with by the Nuclear Power Corporation and the state government.
The assumption that the problem of pollution of inland water bodies can be solved by shifting all power plants and refineries to the coast can no longer be taken for granted in the wake of the 2004 tsunami and the recent disaster in Japan, the minister said.
He added: "In the wake of what we have seen in the last few days in the most orderly, disciplined, technologically advanced country like Japan, imagine how it will be if it happens in an open, democratic and wonderfully disorganised country like ours?”
He also termed as a ‘joke’ the current system of environmental impact assessment of proposed industrial projects.
The ministry will soon introduce a system to get a third party to conduct environmental assessments for projects in ecologically sensitive areas like wetlands or projects that involve multiple sectors, he said.
"Frankly speaking, environmental impact assessment reports prepared for projects are bit of a joke. Under the system we have today, the person who is putting up the project prepares the report. Even reputed government institutions do cut and paste jobs,” he said.
Ramesh said his the ministry recently introduced accredited system of consultants. It has accredited 200 consultants and is blacklisting those furnishing false reports. Last week, three consultants were blacklisted for producing fraudulent environmental impact assessment reports.
He welcomed a Supreme Court verdict of Friday in Nirma cement factory case. The court has asked the ministry to set up a panel to redo the environmental appraisal.
He said the factory was coming up in a wetland in Gujarat and the ministry had issued orders to stop the work. According to him, the ministry had cleared the project some years ago on the grounds that the state government said it was a wasteland.