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THE nuclear component of the Manmohan Singh-George Bush Joint Statement of July 18 has inexplicably become the key to the changing contours of India's foreign policy. Even though the nuclear deal is mired in the complex semantics of reciprocal commitments made by the two governments and the problems do not seem resolvable in the next few days, there is no let-up in the efforts to conclude it before President Bush arrives. The visit of U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the chief negotiator on the nuclear component, ahead of Bush's visit, did not produce any remarkable results.
While "progress in negotiations" is now the phrase being used by officials, the negotiators appear reconciled to not working against any unrealistic deadlines; instead they are apparently trying to arrive at an acceptable solution as early as possible. Given the hardened negotiating stances of the two sides, it is a moot point what kind of compromise is workable. From the inspired stories in the media, it would seem that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is actually batting for the U.S. Naturally, then, the MEA and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) are yet to find common ground to be able to speak with one voice at the negotiating table.
Where talks have hit the roadblock is with regard to the key Indian commitment to "identifying and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities and programmes in a phased manner and... taking a decision to place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards".
The reciprocal commitment of the U.S. is "to seek agreement from Congress to adjust U.S. laws and policies... and... work... to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India, including but not limited to expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded nuclear reactors at Tarapur".
The DAE's point is that which facilities would be placed under IAEA safeguards, and when, should essentially be an Indian sovereign decision. The U.S. has argued that if the President has to get the legislative changes approved by Congress, and get the 44-members of the NSG to accept India-specific changes to its guidelines, which require full-scope safeguards for exports of nuclear reactors, materials and systems to nuclear non-weapon states, India must come up with a civil-military separation plan that is "credible, defensible and transparent".
The Indian nuclear power programme currently consists of 15 operational reactors with a total installed capacity of 3,310 MWe, amounting to about 3 per cent of total installed electricity generation capacity in the country. Of these, four are under safeguards. These are Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) 1 & 2, the two Boiling (Light) Water Reactors (BWRs) at Tarapur built by General Electric in the 1960s (which requires enriched uranium met through imports), and Rajasthan Atomic Power Station RAPS 1 &2, the two pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) at Rawatbhata built with Canadian assistance and operationalised with Russian heavy water. The rest, indigenously built 220 MWe PHWRs, are unsafeguarded and use domestic natural uranium and heavy water.
In addition, there are nine plants, with a total capacity of 3,920 MWe, under various stages of construction. These include the twin 1,000 MWe LWRs at Koodankulam being built by Russia which, once completed, will come under IAEA safeguards. The rest include a 540 MWe PHWR, four 220 MWe PHWRs and one 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). To make up the projected 20,000 MWe by 2020, 4 x 500 MWe fast breeder reactors (FBRs), 10 540 MWe PHWRs and six 1,000 MWe LWRs of the Koodankulam kind, totalling 13,400 MWe, have been planned.
It must be noted that given the restrictions imposed by NSG guidelines, the six planned imports of 1,000 MWe LWRs above can happen only if the guidelines are relaxed after the civil-military separation plan proposed by India is accepted. Otherwise, the 2020 target will be down by 6000 MWe, which is still greater than the minimum 10,000 MWe based on PHWRs that is required to sustain the breeder phase(using plutonium separated from the PHWR fuel discharge and depleted uranium as fuel). Indian resources of natural uranium can sustain only 10,000 -12,000 MWe.
The breeders, which will constitute the second stage of the Indian programme, will in turn convert the abundant supply of thorium-232 that India has into uranium-233. U-233 will fuel the third stage consisting of advanced heavy water reactors (AHWRs). Based entirely on a self-sustaining U-233 Th-232 cycle, the third stage would release the programme completely from uranium economy. Based on this complete fuel cycle concept, the three-stage programme can achieve over 100,000 MWe by 2040 without any reliance on imports of reactors or fuel. From this perspective, imported nuclear power plants following a successful India-U.S. nuclear deal would only be an additionality and, therefore, the deal is not critical for the basic nuclear programme of the DAE.
The deal has got stuck because of the U.S. insistence that all the civilian power-producing reactors (operating and under construction), including the PFBR, be brought under safeguards. This means four LWRs, 17 PHWRs and one PFBR, in all 22. The breeder, in whose technology India is one of the most advanced in the world, has become the bone of contention.
"Breeder will never be placed under safeguards," Kakodkar has declared. Theoretically, he has implied that there are a whole lot of intangibles that come with a safeguards regime, including issues about protection of proprietary information. Former DAE scientists say that information invariably finds its way to the U. S. But more significantly, he has stated that putting PFBR under safeguards even after it becomes operational in 2011 will also harm the strategic needs of maintaining a credible minimum deterrent (CMD). Till now, India's strategic programme has been served almost entirely by weapons-grade plutonium produced in the unsafeguarded research reactors at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) - the 40 MWth CIRUS and the 100 MWth Dhruva.
Another controversial issue is that the U. S. would like the safeguards to be in perpetuity. While this would certainly be the suppliers' requirement for imported reactors, this cannot be acceptable for indigenous reactors. India's experience with the uncertain fuel situation for TAPS, arising out of the U.S. reneging from the contractual obligations after the 1974 nuclear test, shows that at least for indigenous reactors there should be an assurance of fuel supply, and safeguards would be applied only when there is imported fuel in the reactors.
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