PM assures more teeth for nuke regulator

NEW DELHI: The government would give more teeth to Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and make the decision-making process for setting up nuclear power plants more transparent to ensure safety of the units, PM Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday.

"We should bring greater openness and transparency in the decision-making processes relating to our nuclear energy programme and improve our capacity to respond to the public desire to be kept informed about decisions and issues that are of concern to them," Singh said at a function after conferring the Department of Atomic Energy's Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2009.

Responding to concerns that the regulatory board in its present form lacks teeth, Singh said the government would make it a truly autonomous and an independent authority. "We will ensure that it is of the highest and the best international standards."

Noting the global concerns over safety of nuclear energy as a source of power in the aftermath of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi plants, Singh said future reactors — manufactured indigenously and the imported — as well as technologies in India would have to be certified by the Indian regulatory authority.

Singh said he would like to see "accountability and transparency" in the functioning of India's nuclear power plants. The PM has already directed a technical review of all safety systems of nuclear power plants, using the best expertise available in the country.

Singh also defended India's nuclear power porgramme and the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, which, he said, had ended the country's isolation in the nuclear arena.

"For a large and fast growing economy like India, it is imperative that it taps all sources of energy and diversify its energy mix," he said.