By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, Nov 29 (IANS) Workers at the Kaiga atomic power plant in Karnataka are a shaken lot after the drinking water of a laboratory cooler was found contaminated with radioactive Tritium, suspected to be an act of sabotage.

Fifty-five employees drank the contaminated water on Nov 24 and were hospitalised. Many of them were discharged later.

The incident that took place at the Unit 1 reactor building of the Kaiga generating station has left the employees completely shaken and has introduced an element of suspicion among them, said an official on condition of anonymity.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), which owns the nuclear power plants including Kaiga, has launched a probe into the radiation leak. Tritium can cause cancer if ingested.

“Everybody has implicit faith in their colleagues at the work place and more so in the case of critical operations. This has got shaken now at Kaiga,” maintained a NPCIL official.

J.P. Gupta, station director at Kaiga, told IANS over phone: “We have a list of the people who had entered the reactor building that day. The investigating agencies are analysing the data.”

Denying any human relations (HR) problem at the plant, Gupta said: “It is true that employees will be more vigilant now about their colleagues till the culprit is nabbed.”

According to a statement issued by S.K. Jain, CMD of NPCIL, preliminary enquiries have not revealed any violation of operating procedures or radioactivity releases or security breach.

“It is possibly an act of mischief. The related agencies are investigating,” Jain’s statement said.

According to Gupta, the heavy water (Tritium) could have been taken from the reactor building (Unit 1), or from samples of the heavy water kept for analysis, or from outside where it is stored in sealed drums.

“No drum seal has been found broken. There is no leakage in the reactor systems,” Gupta maintained.

He said critical areas of the reactor building are monitored by a camera. However, the water cooler was outside the critical area and hence not covered by the camera.

The Kaiga nuclear power plant, located 500 km from Bangalore, operates three units of 220 MW and a fourth one is under construction.

Of the three units, Unit 1 is under biennial maintenance shutdown since Oct 20 and is expected to start operations in a week’s time. The remaining two plants have been working at around 65 percent capacity.

According to Gupta, the Unit I is expected to generate around 140 MW once it starts operations.