Chennai, Sep 6 (IANS) Work on India’s first fast-breeder fuel cycle facility (FRFCF) is expected to start next year with the project’s regulatory clearances reaching the final leg.
“Construction work on the Rs.5,000-crore facility is expected to start in 2011 and get over by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan period,” Baldev Raj, director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), told IANS.

“The project is in the process of getting clearances from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board,” he said.

The facility will have a reactor fuel fabrication and reprocessing plant, reactor core sub-assembly plant, reprocessed uranium oxide plant and waste management plant.

The facility is being set up to serve the upcoming 500 MW prototype fast-breeder reactor (PFBR) and is expected to go on stream sometime next year.

Co-locating the fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities has several advantages in terms of safety, security and logistics which in turn make the effort economical.

According to Raj, a project proposal will be submitted to the government soon. The project was earlier estimated to cost around Rs.2,000 crore and now the cost has shot up by Rs.3,000 crore.