India has H-bomb capability of upto 200KT: Kakodkar

Mumbai: In yet another attempt to mute a flaring controversy, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar today affirmed that the 1998 test was not only successful but also enables Indian scientists to build H-bombs with an explosive power of upto 200 kilotons.

This photo, released by the Government of India on 17 May 1998, shows the Pokhran-II test site after a nuclear device was detonated underground on 11 May.

"Once again I would like to re-emphasise that the 1998 nuclear tests were fully successful. We had achieved all the objectives in toto.

"It has given us the capability to build deterrence based on both fission and thermonuclear weapon systems from modest to all the way upto 200 kilotons," Kakodkar said, addressing a press conference here.

Kakodkar termed as "unnecessary" the controversy over the Pokhran-II nuclear tests.

The controversy flared upon claims by senior ex-defence scientist K Santhanam, who was the co-ordinator for the Pokhran-II tests, that though the fission tests – i.e. atom bomb – test had worked like a ''song,'' the fusion or the hydrogen bomb test was a failure.

Addressing a press conference in Mumbai along with the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Union government, R Chidambaram, Kakodkar said the Pokharan-II nuclear tests provided India the capability to build deterrence in both the fission and fusion categories.

Earlier, on 15 September, in a signed statement, atomic energy secretary K Muralidhar also ruled out the claims and stated that ''the thermonuclear test had to be kept at 45 KT in order to protect the nearby Khetorai village from the combined yield of the thermonuclear and fission test.''