India: Kudankulam plant cannot be allowed to remain idle - PM

New Delhi, Dec 17 (PTI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday the Kudankulam Nuclear Power plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, whose commissioning has been stalled due to protests, cannot be allowed to remain "idle" when the nation has sunk an amount of Rupees 140 billion (about USD 2.8 billion) on the project. Speaking to reporters on board the PM's Special Aircraft on way back from Moscow, Singh also said there is a growing view which he also shared that the agitation against the Russian-aided project has been "overdone". Expressing confidence that ultimately good sense would prevail among those concerned over safety issues for operationalising the plant, he said government has gone out of its way to assure as much as it can that the 1,000 MW nuclear reactors each that have been put in place are the "safest available" in the world. Singh had Friday said that the first unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power project will be operationalised in a "couple of weeks" and that the second unit will be commissioned six months later. "It is my sincere hope that Tamil Nadu which is short of power supply will recognise that there is a plant of 2,000 MW set up at cost to the nation of Rs 14,000 crore, we cannot simply let it idle," he said. Singh said that if the first two units of Kudankulam generate 2,000 MW power, nearly 1000 MW would be availed by Tamil Nadu and the rest would be available to the other states in South India. The Prime Minister made the remarks when asked about his hopes of operationalising the plant when the ground realities are different. Singh said: "There are difficulties, there are some people who are worried about the safety of nuclear reactorsand we have gone out of our way to assure as much as we can that the nuclear reactors that are being put up at Kudankulam are the safest available in the world." "I am confident that ultimately good sense will prevail, politics is sometime I think too murky. In the final analysis, I am confident that sense prevails and will prevail in this case," Singh said. Noting that a group of 15 experts has been appointed to interact with representatives of the Tamil Nadu Government and locals, the Prime Minister said more and more people, including legislators and himself, are increasingly of the view that this agitation is overdone. PTI