Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant

Tamil Nadu: What is happening at Kudankulam?

Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant is currently under construction in Koodankulam in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

• The original agreement was signed between former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on November 20, 1988.
• The project remained in suspension for a decade due to political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup, and also due to objections of the United States on the grounds that the agreement does not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW.

But as of now, thousands of protesters and villagers living around the plant, are blocking highways and staging hunger strikes, preventing further construction work, as they believe that the nuclear plant is unsafe. The anti-nuclear protests at Idunthakkarai, neighbouring Kudankulam and barely a kilometre from the nuclear power plant site in Tirunelveli district in south Tamil Nadu, are having their impact on the economy of the surrounding villages. In Kudankulam, for instance, thousands of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, who worked for the nuclear power project and depended on the villagers for lodging and food, have been thrown out.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2011