The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, as you have pointed out (“Don’t repeat Bhopal”, March 12 ), needs to be modified, but not scrapped. The issue really is of the liability cap, so whether we make it 300 million SDRs (Rs 2,100 crore) or 600 million SDRs should not really make too much of a difference to the companies that are going to build nuclear power projects since the insurance premium on it will probably not be so large as to derail the project itself. What is not clear is why the Bill has two sets of liability, an overall one of 300 million SDRs and a smaller one of Rs 500 crore for the operator — if someone else is running the plant, why should the government take over the balance liability?
What is more shocking in the case of the Bhopal disaster that you have alluded to is that the government took so long to distribute the money and provide medical care for the victims. Intellectuals in newspapers can debate the pros and cons of claims and who should bear liability, but for the country’s citizens, the only person they know is the government, and so it is the government that must bear all the responsibility for fixing the problem — whether it gets the money from the company concerned is important, but comes later.
Sujoy Gupta, New Delhi
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