Kalam suggests a 10-point action plan on the Koodankulam nuclear plant

Chennai, Nov 7 (PTI) A day after giving a thumbs up to the upcoming Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, former President A P J Abdul Kalam has suggested a 10-point action plan for development of the area including creation of 10,000 jobs, four-lane highway and a world-class hospital. Vouching for the project's safety, Kalam, who visited the site Sunday, said people should not have "even a nano sized doubt" over the safety of the project, as it met all the four safety aspects - nuclear criticality, radiation, thermal hydraulic and structural integrity safety. Construction of a four-lane highway connecting Koodankulam and villages 30 km around it with Madurai, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari, a world-class hospital with over 500-beds, mobile medical facilities to locals and creation of 10,000 jobs to people in the radius of 30 to 60 km and bank loans to youth with upto 25 per cent subsidy, have been suggested by him. In his study report submitted to the Tamil Nadu state government in Chennai, Kalam, a strong advocate of nuclear energy, said, "At the same time, efforts should be made to remove people's fears by providing relevant information and with their full co-operation, the plant should start functioning as scheduled to enable Tamil Nadu to get 1000 MW power." Kalam said 1.5 km radius around the plant was an exclusive sterilised zone and the site came within the project and there was no question of any displacement of habitants. Contending that Tamil Nadu was free from seismic disturbances during the last 1000 years, he said the towers of Meenakshi Temple at Madurai and Big Temple at Thanjavur had not been affected by any earthquake. Citing the historic Grand Anicut built by Chola emperor Karikalan in the first century AD, Kalam said if the king had thought that the dam would burst and destroy humanity, the dam would not have come up and so the present apprehensions on Koodankulam nuclear power project were unnecessary and unwarranted. "We are all caught too much with the disease of fear and danger. History is not made by cowards. Sheer crowd cannot bring about changes. Only those who think everything is possible can create history and bring about changes," he said in an apparent attack on the protestors. He said there was no strength in the argument that even advanced countries like Germany had given up their nuclear power plants. Germany's decision to close down their plants was based on the fact that its uranium deposits would exhaust by 2022. Besides, it had achieved "power independence" even without atomic power. "Nuclear power is a God's boon to human race and to make the best or the worst of it, totally lies in our hands," he said, strongly batting for nuclear energy. PTI