Cabinet approves buying of equipment for heavy water reactors

New Delhi, Oct 9 (UNI) To augment the country's nuclear power capacity to 7280 MWe by March 2011, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today approved procurement of equipment for the four 700 MWe Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) at a cost of Rs 1,680 crore.

This will ensure timely avaialbility of equipment to take advantage of parallel progress of civil construction and equipment erection. ''The long delivery equipment are to be obtained from indegenous manufacturers,'' Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the CCEA meeting.

Two boiling water reactors and 15 PWHRs with a total installed capacity of 4120 MWe are currently in operation. Three 220 MWe PWHRs and two 100 MWe Light Water reactor with a total capacity of 2660 MWe are under advanced stage of construction.

He said construction work has also been taken up on one 500 Mwe Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu signifying launch of the second stage of the nuclear power programme.

UNI