Mumbai: Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar has arrived in Vienna for negotiations on the safeguards agreement and an additional protocol, ahead of a crucial meeting of UN nuclear watchdog IAEA on Friday.

Kakodkar will also lobby NSG members to give New Delhi a ''clean'' waiver for implementation of the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.

The AEC chief will begin talks a day after the US circulated a draft note prepared by it for the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

After the IAEA meeting on 1 August, the US is planning to circulate the final note to the NSG members to consider India's demands.

Kakodkar, who will have a series of meetings to ensure a smooth sailing at the 35-member IAEA board of governors, will also hold talks with all NSG members for getting a ''clean waiver'' ahead of the group's first meeting early next month.

Consultations with the IAEA began this week on an India-specific 'additional protocol' for inspection of its civilian nuclear power plants as per the Indo-US agreement on civil nuclear cooperation signed in July 2005.

The Indo-US bilateral agreement has attracted serious scrutiny from various sources since it was made public on 9 July.

The safeguards agreement, the first of three steps India must take to operationalise the 123 Agreement with the US, has been subject to wide criticism form within and outside the country.

The India-specific safeguards agreement is a 23-page text consisting of a preamble, 130 numbered clauses and an annex listing the facilities that will be subject to IAEA safeguards under the agreement.

The central issue about the safeguards agreement, as pointed out by three eminent scientists PK Iyengar (former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission), A Gopalakrishnan (former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) and A N Prasad (former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre), has been on how ''India-specific'' the draft was?.

The two main concerns pertain to the uninterrupted supply of fuel to the reactors that India has agreed to place under IAEA safeguards in perpetuity and the ambiguity of corrective measures that India can take in the event of fuel disruption.

The Department of Atomic Energy, which led the negotiations with the IAEA secretariat, believes that the agreement gives India enough elbow room by way of taking ''corrective measures'' in case fuel supplies are interrupted.

Corrective measures, as Kakodkar had explained earlier, are unspecified sovereign rights that arise if this understanding is breached. Fuel supply assurances, according to him, have to be embedded when India imports reactors from supplier countries. Kakodkar added that since fuel supply arrangements will be between India and supplier nations, India will have to obtain a strong commitment from the supplier nations for fuel supply.