Russia to build more N-plants at Koodankulam

New Delhi, Feb 12 (UNI) Reiterating President Vladimir Putin's stand on helping India build new nuclear power plants, Russia today said it will build additional nuclear reactors in Koodankulam, Tamil Nadu.

Addressing journalists after his 90-minute meeting with Russian counterpart Victor Zubkov, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, ''We have finalised negotiation in regard to reaching agreement on building additional nuclear power plants in India," Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant. This will add another 2.5 GW output from the project. When completed, this will provide about 40 per cent of the nuclear power in India.

The Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed on November 20, 1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikahil Gorbachev.

The project was in limbo for 10 years. There has been considerable struggle to stop this project due to nuclear pollution reasons.

While United States complained about the agreement as it does not meet with the terms of the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG), Russia contends that the Koodankulam deal was originally signed in 1988 and is therefore not subject to the 1992 NSG guidelines.

Even the current expansion plan was to be signed during Dr Singh's visit to Moscow in November last but it was put off because of lack of NSG waiver.

Mr Singh said the two sides agreed that 'vast potential' existed for ooperation in the field of hydrocarbons and hoped that the ongoing discussions between oil and gas companies of the two countries will result in finalisation of joint projects in India, Russia and third countries.

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