Kerala urged to move against Kudankulam n-plant

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/CHENNAI: The Steering Committee of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy

(PMANE), based in Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district, has

requested the Kerala government to move a resolution against the

Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP).In a memorandum

submitted to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and other ministers,

the steering committee has requested the state assembly to ask the

central government to abandon the KNPP, coming up 70 aerial kilometres

from Thiruvanathapuram.Committee convenor C. Subramanian led a

six member delegation and met Chandy, leader of opposition V.S.

Achuthanandan and other state ministers here Thursday."The chief

minister has said that he will speak with his cabinet colleagues on

this issue, while Achuthanandan has given us some hope that he even

might pay a visit to the project area. We will stage a sit-in in the

capital city here next Tuesday," Subramanian told IANS."We also

appraised the Kerala leaders that any nuclear accident in the Kudankulam

power plant would affect Kerala state as well," M. Pushparayan,

convenor of Coastal People's Federation, told IANS.The Nuclear

Power Corporaition of India Ltd (NPCIL) is building two 1,000 MW nuclear

power reactors with Russian technology and equipment in Kudankulam,

around 650 km from Chennai.The first unit is expected to go on stream in December. The project cost is estimated around Rs.13,000 crore.The

memorandum argues that the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal

has stopped the Russian nuclear power park project at Haripur in Purba

Medhinipur district and taken a position that they do not want any

nuclear power project in their state.It also points out that the

people of Kerala have not allowed the hosting of any nuclear power

project. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh has also expressed

reservations on the proposed 1,300 MW nuclear power plants in Srikakulam

district. The Tamil Nadu cabinet has also passed a resolution asking the central government to put the KNPP on hold."We

have been opposing KNPP ever since it was conceived in the mid-1980s.

The KNPP reactors are being set up without sharing the Environmental

Impact Assessment (EIA), Site Evaluation Study and Safety Analysis

Report with the people, or the people's representatives or the press,"

the memorandum says."No public hearing has been conducted for

the first two reactors either. The KNPP project has been imposed on an

uninformed and unwilling population throwing all the democratic precepts

and values of our country to the wind," the memorandum adds.Another

issue on which they have briefed the Kerala authorities is that the

coolant water and low-grade waste from the KNPP are going to be dumped

into the sea, which will have a disastrous impact on fish production.

This will affect the food security of the entire populations of Tamil

Nadu and Kerala.Queried about the expert committee announced by

the government, PMANE convenor S.P. Udayakumar told IANS: "The Tamil

Nadu government has passed a resolution to halt the ongoing project

work. The Prime Minister had agreed that the committee will have members

nominated by central and state governments and also our

representatives. But that assurance has not been honoured."He said many of the documents demanded by them about the KNPP have not been given till date."We want to consult the Tamil Nadu government first on the matter," he said.