Future India N-plants to come under IAEA safeguard

Vienna: All future Indian nuclear plants under civilian domain could be placed under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguard mechanism that could be on par with the mechanism for the five declared nuclear powers.

Without creating a separate India specific safeguards, IAEA sources indicated that in all probability, all the future Indian nuclear plants under civilian domain could be placed under the agency's safeguards system of 1965, as provisionally extended in 1966 and 1968.

That means, India can benefit the safeguard mechanisms (campaign safeguards) which are reactor specific and utility specific and would be closer to the five nuclear weapon (P-5) countries and not as a non-weapon state (country), the sources said.

This could be essentially on the same lines as that of safeguard arrangement made between India and IAEA for two units of Tarapur atomic power plants set up in 1969 (by General Electric, US) and two units Rajasthan (from Canada) in 1971.

“The provisionally extended safeguard system of 1966 is a revised system with additional provisions for reprocessing plants,” the sources said.

“The extended safeguards system of 1968 is a revised system with further additional provisions for safeguarded nuclear material in conversion plants and fabrication plants,” the sources added.