TIRUNELVELI: The production at unit 1 of the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) on Sunday night was resumed mainly aimed at avoiding embarrassment during the visit of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, said S P Udhayakumar, Coordinator, PeopleÂ’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE).
Talking to presspersons here on Monday, the PMANE leader alleged that earlier the government claimed that the damaged components in unit 1 have to be procured from Russia and later made a U-turn announcing that they would be purchased from the Bharat Heavy Electronics Limited (BHEL). Again, this decision too was reversed and recently the government said that the damaged parts would be replaced with parts from the second unit and the work would take minimum six months.
Now, all of a sudden on Sunday night, the Centre had announced that the reactor has been commissioned and power generation has started. This clearly indicated that the Centre was staging a drama aimed at avoiding questions being posed to Putin about the sub-standard parts being used at the Russian-backed KKNPP.
Speaking about the agreement on construction of the units 3 and 4 expected to be signed during Putin’s visit he said, “When the first two units are unsafe and not in action why should they go for the next two units. So, the agreement should not be signed.”
He also said that there were too many allegations against the first two units such as large quantity of diesel worth `30 crore being taken into them, reluctance in providing the Site Evaluation Report, Safety Analysis Report even after the Chief Information Commission declared them as public documents and advised the government to release it as it was concerned with the safety of the people. Further, there was no information about the fate of the six workers, who were injured in May this year, Udhayakumar added.
Sources said the unit 1 that resumed on Sunday night and generated 700 MW was earlier shut down on September 26 to facilitate inspection of the turbine and its associated components. After over 70 days, the unit-1 resumed operations on at 9.50 pm on December 7.