The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has lent its stamp of approval to the contentious Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, thereby clearing the decks for it to be placed in Parliament next week.
The bill faced a major hiccup when the BJP decided to roll back support since they believed the agreed draft had been tampered with at the last minute. Bowing to pressure from both BJP and the Left parties, the government agreed to remove the controversial insertions which would dilute the liability of the suppliers.
During the Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister had personally insisted that the Opposition’s criticism be accommodated. The Oppo-sition had wanted the word “and” connecting two sub-clauses in the draft legislation to be removed.
Eighteen official amendments have been made to the earlier draft, thereby changing it substantially as also strengthening its preamble. Once the bill is passed, it will give a green signal to the government to start building six nuclear reactors in Jaitpur (Maharashtra) with the equipment supplied by the French nuclear giant Areva to help produce 10,000 MWs of electricity.
“This will become the largest power plant in India. The same capacity of solar power would have required 20,000 hectares of land as against 6,000 ha for nuclear power,” said minister for science and technology Prithviraj Chavan, clarifying details of the amended draft.