People need to be educated about n-power benefits: Minister

New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS) The Indian public needs to be educated about the benefits of nuclear power so as to facilitate wider diffusion of this clean, non-fossil based energy, particularly in north India, the government said on Monday.

"The recent setting up of the Hall of Nuclear Power exhibition at the Pragati Maidan in Delhi, was precisely aimed to educate the public coming to the capital, about India’s achievements in this area," Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said.

Addressing a nuclear conference here organised by the India Energy Forum in partnership with companies like NPCIL, Nuvia India and Westinghouse, he lamented the poor footfall at this impressive nuclear exhibition in the national capital.

"For historical reasons the headquarters of Indian atomic energy and space programmes have not been in Delhi, but in western and southern India respectively. So, there is need to educate the public, particularly of the north, to dispel fears about this clean form of energy," Singh said.

"Whenever we tried to take up acquiring land for a nuclear plant in the north, there would be land acquisition issues. For instance, we are exploring a site in Doon Valley in Uttarakhand and protest messages have come in this regard," he added.

The government is looking at possible sites in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana for setting up new atomic power plants, he said.

"We are exploring the possibility of having such establishments in other places, for example near Dehradun in Uttarakhand and near Patiala in Punjab. We are also looking for a place in Bhiwani in Haryana," the minister said.

Haryana will have its first nuclear plant when the 1,400 MW unit being built in Gorakhpur, in Fatehabad district, for which state-run Nuclear Power Corp. of India has sought bids from domestic equipment manufacturers, comes up by 2021.

Singh earlier this week said that electricity will be available from the Haryana plant at a cost of just over Rs 6 per unit.

The tariff from the operational Russian-built Kudankulam nuclear power plant is at Rs 3.89 per unit, according to the presentation made by R. Banerjee, Director (Projects) NPCIL.

Singh also said that even though currently over 60 per cent of power generated in India is from fossil fuels, renewable energy will have a greater role in the years to come and the country will have at least 25 per cent of energy from nuclear plants within the next decade.

Former Secretary of Department of Atomic Energy Anil Kakodkar, who is Professor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said the target of India generating 63,000 MW power from nuclear energy is back on the agenda of the government, though a time line has not yet been set for achieving it.

In this connection, Russia has offered India a new range of reactor units — the VVER-Toi (typical optimised, enhanced information) design — for the third and fourth units of the Kudankulam project in Tamil Nadu being built by its atomic power corporation Rosatom.

An inter-governmental agreement between India and Russia was signed in December 2008 for setting up Kudankulam’s units 3 to 6. The ground-breaking ceremony for construction of units 3 and 4 was performed earlier this year.