India capable of building N-powered aircraft carriers, warships: Kakodkar
05 Aug 2009
India has the "technical expertise and capability" for building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and warships, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar has said.
"We have the technical expertise and capability to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and warships of global standards," Kakodkar said on the sidelines of a function in Mumbai late on Tuesday.
"We are confident that we can build even supply propelling energy for aircraft carriers," he said, adding it is only a question of when the government decides to do so.
India launched the indigenously built nuclear-powered submarine 'INS Arihant' last month, and the government plans to develop more such submarines.
India, Kakodkar said, is aiming at setting up 40GWe light water reactors between 2012 and 2020 and for that "we had to go for international cooperation."
"Once we do this, then the doubling of nuclear power generation capacity can be achieved through fast breeder reactors (FBRs)," he said, adding, "These are important for our future thorium programme."