State government panel submits report on Koodankulam nuclear power plant

Chennai, Feb 28 (PTI) The four-member committee set up by Tamil Nadu Government on the safety aspects of Koodankulam nuclear power plant (KNPP) in the southern Indian state today submitted its report to state Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa amid indication that it has given a clean chit to the controversial project stalled by protests. Committee Convenor Prof S Iniyan handed over the report to Ms Jayalalithaa but declined to divulge details, saying the government would take follow up action. "As I said earlier", Iniyan said when asked about the committee's findings on safety aspects. After visiting the site and talking to the anti-KNPP protesters recently, Iniyan had said the plant was equipped to deal with any situation such as earthquakes and tsunami strikes and that its third generation reactors would shut down automatically in case of any problem. The team, which also includes former Indian atomic energy commission chairman M R Srinivasan, had reviewed the safety measures during its inspection of the plant on February 18 and met members of the anti-KNPP struggle committee led by S P Udayakumar the next day. "Let the government take a cool view on the report", Srinivasan said. He had earlier said the state-of-the-art safety features incorporated in the KNPP reactors had made it a ‘Third Generation Plus' reactor. The committee, set up by Jayalalithaa to break the impasse caused by the over five month long protest, was given two tasks -- reviewing safety features and allaying concerns of the local people. The commissioning of the first 1,000 MWe reactor of the Indo-Russian joint venture, originally scheduled for December last, has been delayed following the continuing protests by the locals who have raised safety concerns. Talks initiated both by the Central and state governments with the agitators had failed to break the deadlock. PTI