N-plant safety hot topic at VIT Tech fest

CHENNAI: Safety measures at nuclear stations are so stringent that in the event of an earthquake the safest place in the city would be a nuclear station, S C Chetal, director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), said.
He was speaking at a three-day National Tech Fest at the Vellore Institute of Technology on Sunday. When the VIT chancellor G Viswanathan raised a doubt about the safety of nuclear plants, Chetal said enough buffer margins were there to deal with any natural threat that may arise at Kalpakkam but one cannot do away with every negative possibility.
As for the Fukushima disasters in Japan, he said that one should not compare the Japanese parameters of safety with ours because there were many physical differences in the landscape and
it would be out of context to try and replicate those here.
"Though our power generation has grown by 130 times since independence, 40% of our people still have no power," he said. "We are a nation with one-fifth of the world's population and 6% of the available oil," he added. Talking about wind energy, he said that though Tamil Nadu and Gujarat were doing very well, the question is whether we can make power affordable to the common man. Solar energy is now available at Rs 12 to 15 per unit but the price has to come down to Rs 2 or 3.
He told the student gathering, "We are a nation of nuclear power stations as well as bullock carts. It is your duty as engineers to find ways to make power affordable to the common man."
Though India is a great country there is much more to do, he said, adding India has made great progress in the field of science and technology, especially in the last decade, whether it be in the areas of space, pharma, supercomputing or software. "We can be far better than the rest of the world," he said.
You must work towards making life comfortable for the common man, the man on the bullock cart," he said.