Koodankulam goes nuclear

On the southern tip of India, barely 20 km from Kanyakumari and just across the water from Sri Lanka, the public-sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is setting up two 1000-megawatt nuclear reactors – the largest such plants in the country. Though construction on both of the Russian-built reactors is currently behind schedule, NPCIL has already proposed to import four additional nuclear generators, for installation at the same site. To fulfil a mandatory step in the official environmental clearance process, on 2 June the Tamil Nadu State Pollution Control Board conducted a public hearing. From the outset, the distinct impression at the meeting was that the state administration was hoping merely to be done with an undesirable formality. What is more, they allowed NPCIL to use the hearing as a platform from which to promote the project and to make unsubstantiated claims about the reactors' safety.

But things did not go according to the official script. Locals of the area had been fed pro-nuclear rhetoric for years, and nearly 7000 people gathered to take advantage of the first official opportunity to put their own views on nuclear-energy production into the public record. Almost to an individual, they said that they were opposed to the project. As participant after participant spoke against the Koodankulam plan, the official in charge abruptly announced that NPCIL had clarified all the people's doubts, and declared the meeting closed. Contrary to the requirements of the law, the minutes of the meeting – what would enter the official record as the public's views – were not read out.