By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, Feb 18 (IANS) After some initial hiccups in getting the nuclear reactor components from Russia, India is now receiving the same in a smooth manner, said a senior official of Nuclear Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL).
“The reactor component supplies from Russia have now normalised after some initial problems,” a senior official of NPCIL told IANS preferring anonymity.
“During the Covid pandemic also we didn’t get ships. After the conflict the ships belonging to the western nations were not available to transport nuclear components from Russia to India. We approached the public sector shipping companies and they organised some ships. Later Russia’s Rosatom organised the ships to transport the components. Now the supplies are normalised and there is no impact,” the official added.
According to an NPCIL official, transportation of components from Russia to Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu was NPCIL’s responsibility.
India’s atomic power plant operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) is currently building four nuclear power plants (Units 3, 4, 5 & 6) of 1,000 MW capacity each at Kudankulam.
Already, two 1,000 MW plants (Units 1 and 2) are operational at Kudankulam. All the six units are built with Russian technology and equipment supplied by Rosatom.
Major equipment for building the third and fourth units have reached Kudankulam from Russia. A sizable number of components for the fifth and sixth units are to come from Russia.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
–IANS
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