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Nuclear waiver promises to widen India's investment scope

Pai jab Bhattacharya, New Delhi
India's leading chambers of commerce and industryyester-day welcomed the historic decision of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift a 34-year-old ban on global atomic trade with the country.
The business leaders said it would unlock huge business opportunities and potential investment to the tune of billions of dollars in the domestic nuclear power generation sector.
The Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) said the clearance by 45-naton NSG will enable India to get imported nuclear fuel and uranium for all its nuclear power plants which have been running at almost half the capacity so far.
According to an estimate, capacity utilisation of India's 4.120MW nuclear power plants had declined steadily from 90 percent in 2001 -2 to 54 percent in 2007-8 because of the sanctions imposed by nuclear supplier countries after India tested a nucleardevicein May 1998.
The NSG green light is expected to facilitate transfer of nuclear technology, including reactors, and fuel supplies and push up the installed capacities of Indian atomic power plants to 20.000MW by 2020 from 4,120MWnow.
The waiver gives India a lot of options to diversify its energy sources, said Prof CN R Rao, scientific adviser to the prime minister. India can buy uranium from various sources and other countries can come to India and set up nuclear reactors, he added.
Die Confederation of Indian Industry the NSG decision will open tremendous business opportunities for India besides meeting its energy requirements to fuel the economic growth.
CD Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said it would provide opportunities to Indian manufacturers to supply spares and components to global makers of nuclear power plants.
However, private players --domestic and foreign - will have to wait until India amends its Atomic Energy Act of 1962 to allow them in the nuclear power sector.
Among the foreign companies keen to tap the Indian nuclear power sector are General Electric and Westinghouse of the United States, Areva and Alstom of France, Toshiba and Hitachi of Japan and companies from Russia. Representatives of the companies have already visited India a number of times in the last two years to explore the scenario of big projects and joint ventures with Indian companies both in public and private sectors.
Among the Indian firms looking to benefit from the NSG
decision to grant a waiver to India to go into nuclear trade are state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India limited (NPCIL), power generation major National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), both in the public sector, and private players like Larsen and Toubro, Reliance Power, Tata Group and the Jindal Power.
Once the joint venture is formed, they would also tie up with BHEL for producing supercritical boilers.
GE Energy is in talks with some Indian equipment suppliers, including BHEL, to help their business set up nuclear power plants from a global standpoint.
I’he Jindal group is planning to either enter into joint venture or a techonology tie-up with a foreign company in the nuclear power sector.