Bent for Barack or Flexed for Fission?

As the Air Force One lifted off it was time for us, Indians, to ponder what has been achieved. Both Obama and Modi are 'charismatic' in their own right and were great orators who were able to rally people with their speeches and mesmerized them to vote for them. It was therefore imperative to read between the lines to see at what cost, deals were achieved, as the spell of the #NamObama bonhomie cleared.

The one thing that stood out was the Indo-US Nuclear deal. This was achieved on day one of the presidential visit. The main bone of contention was the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010. The act supposedly holds not just the operator (in our case the Nuclear Power Corporation of India) but also the supplier of the Nuclear Plant (the General Electrics and Alstoms of the world) and the fuel supplier. Now this legal minefield has been completely bypassed by the Government of India establishing an Insurance Pool to the extent of INR 1500 crores of which INR 750 crores is expected to come from five Government owned Insurance companies viz. General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), New India Assurance, Oriental India Insurance, National Insurance and United India Insurance and the rest from the Central Government. I am impressed with the brilliant idea, however, I am equally or more concerned about the impropriety of this decision. 

Not long ago India entered a specialized group of select nations for having sent the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) to Mars. Not many people know that India never insured this rocket launch. Not only this India didn't insure Chandrayaan either or the countless other launches made using Indian rockets. They only insured rocket launches made from other countries with New India Assurance. New India Assurance in turn would reinsure it with other Global Reinsurance companies (like Spaceco of the Allianz Group). The Indian Reinsurance Company, GIC, was said to be lacking expertise or capacity or both.

The logic as to why none of the rocket launches from India were insured was straight forward. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) which was responsible for launching the satellites was owned by the Government of India. Similarly, New India Assurance Insurance was also owned by the Government of India. So any premium paid and claim honored would just be funds moving from one Government coffer to another.

Now the questions in my mind:

• Going by the logic in case of satellites, is it right to use Taxpayer's money to insure and in turn absolve the liability of another country's supplier of Nuclear plant and fuel? The premium will be paid by the operator (Nuclear Power Corporation of India) to Indian Government controlled Insurance companies to absolve the General Electrics of the world from Liability.
• GIC, found wanting in expertise to do actuarial work for satellites, has expertise to assess Nuclear Power Plants? The last time I checked Nuclear Power Plant accidents killed more people than satellite launch accidents.
• The Fukushima clean up till date has cost approximately INR 120 crores and the whole decommissioning of the plant is expected to take 40-50 years after which the actual cost will be known. Considering this, will a corpus of INR 1500 be enough?
• Will the PMANE, who were accused of being incited by NGOs backed by western countries against Russia, raise these issues against US suppliers. They had often quoted the Fukushima disaster in the past and now, General Electric, the company behind the Fukushima plant looks to setup plant in India without liability it would be interesting to see their course of action.

I am a big supporter of Nuclear Power Generation mainly because of the 3Ds of coal mining - Deforestation, Displacement of Indigenous Population, Damage to Wildlife and the pollution caused due to burning of approximately 15000 tons of coal per day for 800 MW (heard orally from a private thermal power plant in Tuticorin I visited).

However, the above questions have questioned my wisdom. Bent for Barack or Flexed for Fission? Considering the fact that we gave the Russians (and probably the French in the future) a similar deal, we flexed it for Fission! Hope it is worth it!