Thaindian News

Chennai, Feb 17 (IANS) The four-member expert committee on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), which met here Friday for the first time, will visit Tirunelveli and meet anti-KNPP activists as well as district administration officials, said a panel member.

“We have decided to study all reports of the earlier expert committee in detail. We will visit Tirunelveli and meet the agitators. We will ask them whether they have any more additional questions. Then we will come back and submit our report to the government,” M.R. Srinivasan, a member of the committee and former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, told IANS.

The panel appointed by the state government also includes two professors from Anna University, D. Arivu Oli and S. Iniyan, and retired IAS officer L.N. Vijayaraghavan.

The panel, Srinivasan said, will also meet the district collector and superintendent of police.

While no timeframe has been fixed for the committee to submit its report, Srinivasan said the report will be given as early as possible.

India’s nuclear power plant operator, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), is building two 1,000 MW atomic power reactors with Russian collaboration at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli, around 650 km from Chennai.

Villagers in Kudankulam, Idinthakarai and nearby areas fear for their lives and safety in case of any nuclear accident.

Their agitation, led by the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), has put a stop to the project work, delaying the commissioning of the first unit slated last December.

The Tamil Nadu government has urged the central government to halt work at the power plant and allay the fears of the people. To resolve the issue, the central and state governments had set up two panels.

The central and the state panels met thrice last year.

The final meeting between the two panels slated for Jan 31 did not take place and the central panel submitted its report and declared that its job is over.

The four member committee after their meeting at the Anna University here met the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi at the state secretariat.

“The meeting with the chief minister and the chief secretary went off well. It was a brief meeting. We are starting our work Saturday travelling to Kudankulam to visit the plant and also meet the agitators,” Arivu Oli told IANS.

The panel members would be meeting PMANE representatives and not the villagers.