Japanese nuclear crisis raises fears in Andhra Pradesh over proposed nuclear power project at Kovvada

The Japanese nuclear crisis has triggered fresh fears among people in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh where protestshave been raging for several months over the proposed 2,000 MW nuclear power plant.

Environmentalists, local villagers and opposition parties are up in arms against the nuclear power project at Kovvada on the grounds that it would cause environmental pollution and large-scale displacement.

The villagers have been resisting land acquisition for the ambitious Rs 60,000 crore project, being taken up by the Nuclear Power Corporation Limited (NPCL) with US technical know-how.

The project, involving construction of six nuclear reactors with the capacity of each unit varying from 1,000 MWe to 1,250 MWe, requires a whopping 9,000 acres. With media reports from the earthquake-hit Japan projecting a major damage to the nuclear power plants and radiation fears, local Congress

MP B Jhansi and some leading environmentalists urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to suspend further measures on the Kovvada plant.

“The nuclear reactors proposed at Kovvada are untested, thus leading to serious safety concerns,” said noted environmentalist and former Union Power Secretary EAS Sarma. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the retired IAS officer said the country must learn lessons from the Japanese nuclear emergency and revisit the ambitious nuclear power programme.

Incidentally, Kovvada was among the first set of four sites identified by the UPA government in 2009 for setting up nuclear plants as part of the civil nuclear agreement with the USA. The other three sites are Pati Sonapur (Orissa), Haripur (West Bengal) and Kutch (Gujarat).

The local farmers and opposition parties have raised issues of radioactivity, pollution, and the effects on fish and groundwater.

“India has embarked on a nuclear adventure by opening the floodgates to foreign reactors, without ensuring that matching arrangements exist for an independent regulatory oversight. The Centre has shown utter disregard to public opinion,” Sarma said.

Referring to the strong earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sarma said the details of the damage at each of the Japanese nuclear power plants would unfold in due course but “the damage could be more than what has been reported so far”.

While the cooling system at Fukushima nuclear plant failed, forcing Japan to declare a “nuclear emergency”, fire broke out at Onagawa, leading to evacuation of thousands of people.

Pointing out that many major and minor nuclear accidents had occurred in Japan in the past, the former civil servant said an accident at the Tokiamura nuclear power project in September 1999 had resulted in an uncontrolled chain reaction that led to serious radioactive exposure to 439 persons in the neighbourhood.

“Locating a nuclear plant at Kovvada can be a suicidal move,” another environmentalist T Sivaji Rao warned.