Koodankulam issue: TN Govt panel to meet tomorrow

Chennai, Feb 16: The four-member committee set up by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to look into the fears and concerns of the protestors against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant would hold its first meeting here on Friday.

"I am reaching Chennai tonight and we will meet tomorrow. All four of us will meet and discuss the issues," former Atomic Energy Commission chief and a member of the four-member panel M R Srinivasan told PTI.

The meeting of the panel comes two days after Russian Ambassador to India Alexander M Kadakin blamed 'vested interests' for the protest against the Indo-Russian joint venture project and said any further delay would only lead to cost overruns.

He had also said the plant would help Tamil Nadu overcome the acute power shortage it was facing.

Asked whether the panel would meet representatives from the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), spearheading the over five-month long protest against KNPP, Srinivasan said, "We (four members) will meet first to decide further action."

Prof D Arivoli and Prof S Iniyan, both from Anna University, and former IAS officer L N Vijayaraghavan are the other members of the committee.

The agitation has brought the work at the plant to a halt, delaying the commissioning of the first unit to May this year.

While welcoming Jayalalithaa's initiative, the PMANE has objected to the nomination of Srinivasan as a member of panel calling him 'pro-nuclear' and seeking his removal.

Jayalalithaa set up the panel after the 15-member expert group constituted by the Centre and the state government's previous panel over the issue failed to break the impasse after four rounds of talks with the protesters, who have been demanding scrapping of the project.

The KNPP's approved completion cost was pegged at Rs 13,171 crore originally but has been revised to Rs 15,824 crore. Till September, 2011, a sum of Rs 14,122 crore had been spent on the project.

PTI