CHENNAI: Setting the stage for the first round of deliberations between two committees on Koodankulam nuclear power plant — he one appointed by the Centre and the other by the State — at Tirunelveli on Tuesday, the Centre’s 15-member expert panel met here on Monday to chalk out an agenda for the consultations.At the day-long meeting at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the committee deliberated on the safety aspects of the plant and its scientific facets. “Our mandate is to look at the science and technology aspects of the safety of the installation to allay the fears that people may have. Anything beyond that is beyond the mandate given to us,” said K Balu, former director of Nuclear Waste Management Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The team, he said, was closely studying the reactor engineering, effluents, safety aspects and the environmental aspects before facing the state panel.On the concerns raised by the protestors over handling of the radioactive waste, Dr Balu shot back: “This is not the first nuclear reactor being built in the country. The wastes in Kudankulam is not going to be any different from the wastes in Tarapore, Rajasthan or Kaiga... We have been managing waste for over 40 years. It is just that proper communication has not trickled down to the people in a manner that they stand convinced and our attempt would be to do exactly that.”Reacting to the dismissive response from the protestors over former President A P J Abdul Kalam’s assertion on the safety aspects of the plant, Balu said that it was unfortunate. “When he says that he has personally gone, inspected, seen and he feels satisfied and that does not satisfy the demands of the protestors, it is sad. But then, it is necessary for us to find out what is the problem.”Balu also said that the committee needed to know if the people’s concern was a genuine fear of something that could go wrong in the reactor. “If so, it is up to this group of experts to tell them how and why it will not happen and, even in the most unlikely event of such a thing happening, how it would not affect the members of the public who are living in the region. After all, safety systems are built only for that purpose.”
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