Leaders seek scrapping of Jaitapur project

Politicians involved with the National Committee in Solidarity with Jaitapur Struggle have called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to cancel the contract with French company Areva for supply of nuclear reactors for the project.

In a letter to the PM, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, senior leader Sitaram Yechury,  CPI leaders AB Bardhan and D Raja, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ramvilas Paswan, JD (S) leader Danish Ali and Telugu Desam Party's Nama Nageshwara Rao, have also expressed concern over the safety of Jaitapur nuclear plant.

They pointed that the central government as also the state government had not paid attention to "serious objections regarding the safety of the proposed Areva reactors and its costs raised by experts, parliamentarians, public figures and the local people". They said it was unlikely that the Areva reactors would pass even an elementary test of techno-economic due diligence.

According to the committee, the Jaitapur project had not been subjected to an independent rigorous scientific techno-economic scrutiny and safety audit in the public domain and was being pushed against the will of the local people.

"The 'conditional' environmental clearance granted by the ministry of environment and forests in November 2010 is also based on an unscientific and deeply flawed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report," the letter said.

It said the agency hired to prepare the EIA was not competent to look into matters of nuclear hazards.