BARC to hand over nuclear project

The country's strategic laboratory Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is working out modalities to hand over its first major public domain project and design of of the newly-developed 300 mega watt Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) for safety regulation to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).

Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said the safety regulatory power transfer of the AHWR from BARC is necessary as it is a power reactor falling under the public domain.

The transfer of power of safety review of the AHWR by the AERB will be done for the first time since the issuance of the formal gazette notification by the President of India in May 2000, under which the safety regulation of BARC and its facilities were transferred from AERB to the BARC Safety Council constituted by its director following Pokhran II nuclear tests, he added.

"This is the first major public domain project of BARC which has to be handed over to the AERB from the strategic lab and this involves certain special issues," Kakodkar said.