The entire world is closely following the aftermath of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plants in north-eastern Japan, caused more by the tsunami than the original earthquake. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has done well to seek a review of safety standards at Indian nuclear power plants. Indian authorities have been reassuring that India’s track record has been good and there should be no fear of similar accidents occurring in earthquake and tsunami prone regions of India. Should these reassurances be taken at face value? Sceptics will point to a lack of transparency on the part of the Indian nuclear energy establishment on the safety of India’s nuclear power programme — and not just because of India’s shaky industrial safety record.
The problem in this case is that the reassurances come from representatives of the same entities that are associated with the production of nuclear power in India — the Department of Atomic Energy and the Nuclear Power Corporation, currently the sole generator of nuclear power in India. This is the equivalent of taking as Gospel the assurances by the promoters of, say, mega-chemical plant that the systems and effluent treatment processes are watertight — that too when the promoters of this plant were also responsible for environmental regulation in the area. If this appears absurd, it should. Yet, this is precisely the situation that prevails in India’s nuclear power regulation set-up. As of now, the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 does not allow private parties to enter nuclear power generation. Only government-owned entities like the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) or, say, NTPC can do so and it is with them that foreign suppliers like France’s Areva and US’s Westinghouse will tie up to develop future reactors. Enabled by the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, India now aims to develop 39 nuclear power reactors. All these will be developed in the public sector domain and it is with them that foreign suppliers of reactors like France’s Areva and US’ Westinghouse will tie up. Who will regulate these entities?
By convention, it should be an independent regulator. The problem is the nuclear power regulator is not independent in India. The administration of the Atomic Energy Act comes under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). But the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which was set up in 1983, derives its regulatory authority from the Atomic Energy Act and the Environmental Protection Act, 1986. The AERB, in turn, is answerable to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) — the status of which is equivalent to the Railway Board under the railway ministry —whose ex-officio chairman is also the secretary of the DAE. Thus, the nuclear power regulator does not have an arm’s length relationship with the promoters of the power plants. The recent empowerment of regulators in fields such as telecom, insurance, power and the stock market, all constituted under separate Acts, shows the way forward. The AERB should be a truly independent regulator, not an arm of the government. At a press conference, the NPCIL chief conceded that although India’s nuclear power plants were safe, there was no room for complacency. The first step in mitigating risk of complacency in supervision is to delink the regulator from the government of India.
