Completion of a journey to end nuclear apartheid, says the Prime Minister
The UPA government today successfully shepherded the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, 2010, through the Lok Sabha, with active support from the BJP and strategic absence of some fence-sitters such as the Samajwadi Party.
Quashing opposition from the Left Bloc and other critics, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh denied that the Bill was railroaded through the House to serve US interests. “This Bill is a completion of a journey to end the nuclear apartheid, which the world had imposed on India in the year 1974,” he said.”
The government managed to bring the BJP on board in return for accepting amendments to the controversial Clause 17(b) and dropping the word “intent”. The new formulation of 17(b), now states that suppliers would be liable where “the accident has resulted as a consequence of an act of a supplier or his employees, done to cause nuclear damage, and such act includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services”.
While his government achieved what appeared even a few months ago to be an impossible task — getting the Lok Sabha to pass the Bill — Singh announced that the government would give safety issues top priority. “Concern about nuclear safety is one, which I fully share. I assure (you) we will do everything to strengthen the Nuclear Regulatory Board to ensure that safety concerns receive the attention that they must, if we are to use nuclear power as a major source for generating and meeting India’s need for energy,” he said.
The Prime Minister also refuted charges that the Bill was tabled at the behest of the US. “To say that this is being done to promote American interests and to help American corporations, I think, is far from being the truth,” he said.
In his intervention, Singh also took a swipe at the Opposition, saying, “As far as I am concerned, this is not the first time that I have been accused of doing such a thing. I recall, and Advaniji would recall, (that) in 1992, when I had presented the Budget of the Congress government, the whole Opposition, with a few exceptions, rose saying I should be impeached and that this Budget had been prepared in the US.”
Drawing parallels between his Budget of the early nineties and the Nuclear Liability Bill, Singh added, “History will judge what we did in 1991 and how it has contributed. I leave it with the people of this country to judge. It is with this very motivation that our government has tried to complete the journey towards ending the regime of nuclear apartheid. To say that we have, in a way, compromised India’s national interest would be a travesty of facts.”
| N-GAME # Government accepts amendments to prickly Clause 17(b) # BJP supports Bill, SP and RJD are absent for the vote # PM promises to give top priority to safety issues # Singh refutes charge that Bill tabled at US behest |
Left parties struck a dissenting note and pressed for a division, but were defeated. The Samjawadi Party, which had also opposed the Bill earlier, was absent from the House along with Lalu Prasad’s RJD during the vote. The two parties criticised the UPA for conniving with the BJP to pass the Bill.
In his intervention, the Prime Minister also addressed the basic issue of nuclear power as a viable, economical option. “All the studies that I have seen done in the atomic energy establishments do tell that beyond a certain distance from the coal mines, nuclear energy is the preferred option even now,” Singh said.
