It has become a habitual thing for the Koodankulam power plant to demonstrate its precariousness with frequent shut downs and cyber-attacks. The power plant has a demoralizing effect on the densely populated region surrounding it, owing to its inadequate Management and insufficient security. The decision to store “highly radioactive nuclear wastes” in Koodankulam village had sent shock waves across the state resulting in an intensified demand to relocate the waste storage facility outside of Tamil Nadu. Along with Koodankulam, the power plant at Kalpakkam makes Tamil Nadu the only state in India Union to have two operational nuclear power plants.
DEPARTMENT OF ATOMIC ENERGY
An inquest into the selection of Tamil Nadu, for basing a cluster of reactors, discloses the ulterior motives behind one of the notorious departments of India. Department of atomic energy (DAE) is the government department which has the authority to formulate India’s nuclear power policies and it reports directly to the prime minister’s office.
Constructing two out of seven operational nuclear power plants in Tamil homeland and justifying it in the National security framework (viz. Pakistan’s missile threat) deceives the general public by overlooking the commercial aspects of nuclear power policy of this country.
The motive to utilize nuclear reaction for commercial usage runs back, several decades, into the era of British Raj. The scientists in the days of British Raj, who collaborated with their European counterparts for research purposes, had the intention of pioneering the research in the field of nuclear physics by establishing required institutes in the Raj. This demanded a huge investment, as the technology was in the initial stages during the world war two period.
The well-known Parsi physicist Homi Bhabha established two research institutes dedicated for nuclear research (which were later called as BARC & TIFR) with the investment from his relative JRD Tata. Decades later, these institutes would go on to play a pivotal role in the manufacture of Nuclear bombs that are in possession of India. Thus, it resulted in the amplification of the nuclearization process in South Asian region, thereby converting it into a highly nuclearized zone in the world, with three nuclear powers sharing border with each other.
“Energy Independence” – DAE’s pretence to spoliate Tamil Nadu’s indispensable natural resource
Homi Bhaba also formulated a “Policy” framework for exploiting the thorium deposits along the coastal regions of this subcontinent under the disguise of “Energy security of India”. It was called as “India’s three stage nuclear power program” and subsequently, the then prime minister Nehru accepted it as India’s official nuclear policy few years later, which displayed the influence of Homi Bhabha in the upper echelons of this country’s power hierarchy.
Thorium deposits in India accounts for one fourth in the world (more than 5,00,000 tons). The coast of Tamil Nadu accounts for about 21% of the total thorium reserves in India, mostly in the form of monazite sand. The Indian atomic energy act, passed in 1962, gave away the power to manage these natural resources (ores of nuclear fuel) to the union government under the purview of Department of Atomic energy, effectively legalizing the Union government’s depredation of natural resources of the states, without paying the state governments for its worth. Hence, other parties were not allowed to process and export sands rich in minerals such as garnet, ilmenite, zircon, monazite, etc from the beaches of Tamil Nadu. While there are multitude of feasible alternatives to reach energy security of this country, the union government’s continued efforts on the attainment of a controlled fission reaction for thorium based nuclear fuel is alarming Tamils, who would be the victims of the environmental disasters which would result on the fruition of the union government’s ambitions.
THE RACE FOR CONTROLLED THORIUM FISSION
The cluster of reactors in Kalpakkam is the result of India’s search for a thorium fuel cycle. The Three stage nuclear power programme, as it is called, aims to economically use the thorium reserves of Tamil Nadu and other coastal states of this union. The success of this research would enable Union government of India and other private conglomerates in this country to install multiple nuclear power plants along the coasts and also to export thorium reactors to various countries and supply the fuel for them from the beach sands of Tamil Nadu and other thorium rich states of this subcontinent. Despite funding the research for several decades, the absence of any practical results pushed the desperate policy hawks in Delhi to dilute the ban on the export of beach sand for cashing in on its mineral deposits. Hence, the proscription of many minerals was lifted in the mid-1990s to allow the private sand mafias to loot the beaches of Tamil Nadu by exporting various minerals such as garnet, sillimanite, ilmenite, rutile, etc except monazite sand. These exploitations continued until the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha banned them in 2013. The infamous sand mafia head Vaikundarajan, who came under the scrutiny of both union and state governments, was exporting this mineral rich sand to other countries, which caused several tens of billions of dollars loss to the state government of Tamil Nadu.
While Kalpakkam plant is the outcome of Delhi’s greediness about Tamil Nadu’s thorium, Koodankulam power plant is the outcome of those policy makers animosity for Tamils. Their hostility towards Tamils goes beyond any possible limits that could be expected out of human compassion. It’s a devastating fact that the coast of Tamil Nadu faces the convergence of economic plundering (private miners) and detrimental policy implementations (union government). Hence, these coasts are facing a threat of proliferation of nuclear power plants in the near future irrespective of India’s success in attaining Thorium fuel cycle, the prevention of which lies in the ability of Tamils to demand their aspirations for a safer life.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
The policy for Nuclear Programme of India is formulated under the complete control of the prime minister’s office and atomic energy department, without considering the opinions of the concerned state governments. Housing one of the most abundant thorium deposits in the world, Tamil Nadu should get the economic benefits of this resource if it is put to use in future. The lead given by the former chief minister of the state Jayalalitha in banning the mining of beach sand should be followed by a demand for the amendment of the Indian Atomic Energy Act to include a provision for the rightful income for the state government when the union government takes the ores of nuclear fuel from Tamil Nadu as the current form of that law favours a blatant appropriation of these minerals by depriving the economic benefits of the state.
