Take home from the Indo-US Nuke Deal 2015
It is projected, that by 2035 India’s energy demand would grow by 132% and India will surpass china to become world’s largest energy consumer according to a latest BP energy outlook report. Nuclear energy with its low carbon footprint and consolidated land requirement would remain a good option for the India’s energy mix. Especially when country’s population is growing and world is inching towards clean energy. It is because of this that the govt. raised the targets to 63000 MW of electricity generation which is 14 times of the present.
In order to prevent the country from the untoward nuclear accident civil liability nuclear damage act 2010 was brought by Indian Government to negotiate with foreign and Indian supplier and operators.
Events that heightened the debate over the liability
The Fukushima nuclear meltdown of Japan in 2011 which took so many lives, with still unknown real figures of deaths. Second the ‘deep sea water horizon’ oil spill off the coast of Mexico found that not only was the operator BP was liable to such damage but the supplier Halliburton also paid $250 Mn as a settlement amount. Looking to these incidents GOI raised the cap higher than $420 Mn fixed earlier, making the CLND more stringent.
The Breakthrough understanding in the recent visit of 2015
Section 17 of the CLND act, provides for the ‘right to recourse’ in case of any accident to claim compensation form the supplier. MEA explained that the provision could only be invoked if both the supplier and operator had agreed to, at the time of starting the business.
The other clause was the section 46, which include any person affected by the nuclear accident for the compensation from the supplier. Here the MEA(Ministry of External Affairs) explained that it would be limited to operator only. Additionally there would be a 1500 crore insurance pool, half of which funded by the public sector insurance company and remaining by GOI. Details of which is yet to be seen with the final agreement.
Under the Nuclear safeguard law of US, Nuclear material is to be monitored to be used only for the civil purpose not for any military purpose. Though MEA said, there would not be any compliance with the US law and that no additional monitoring other than by International atomic energy agency.
Criticism
The floating of insurance pool would put the entire financial liability on the Indian tax payer. As cost of land allotted, building, operationalizing, the reactor and cost to insurance pool, immediate damages to be paid by the central govt. i.e. the Indian tax payer. Also the kind of agreement between the supplier and the operator would determine the discourse post accident.
Certainly, the so called breakthrough brings in more confusion than real answers, as those who were ardently opposing the clauses while in opposition seems to now hammering the agreement while in power without any significant achievement.
