"Though we have been protesting against nuclear energy since 1988, as PMANE, we completed a year's protest against KNPP today. Our protest will go on until the project is scrapped," PMANE Convenor S P Udayakumar told PTI over phone from Idinthakarai, the epicentre of the agitation.
PMANE comprising local residents, small-time traders, fishermen and womenfolk, had been spearheading the protest against the plant since August, 2011 expressing safety concerns, resulting in the delay of commissioning of the first reactor scheduled for December last year.
As part of initiatives to break the logjam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh granted an audience to the movement leaders and heard their concerns, but a high-level expert panel set up by him to allay their fears failed to convince them.
The project work remained stalled for several months before Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in March last gave the go ahead to the controversial project.
"We strongly believe that nuclear energy would not bring any fortune to us, but danger. We have been saying that our lives are at stake... Nuclear energy is not safe," Udayakumar said.
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has recently given its clearance to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) to load the real fuel in the first of the 2x1000 MW units at the KNPP.
According to NPCIL, 99.40 per cent of the physical work at the VVER-type first unit in KNPP has been completed and the plant is expected to commence commercial operation this month.
