India and Russia for setting up units 5 and 6 of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) are at an advanced stage and a general framework agreement could be announced after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of BRICS Summit in Goa.
- An official of the Russian atomic energy corporation Rosatom, the builders of KNPP, the negotiations for units 5 and 6 had been expedited so that an announcement could be made during the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders summit in Goa on October 15-16.
- The first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear was dedicated to the nation on August 10 jointly by Modi and Putin, who had participated at the ceremony from Moscow through video-conferencing.
- The second unit at Kudankulam went critical later in August, when the stage of physical start-up was completed successfully, and it is expected to be commissioned later this year. According to KNPP site Director R.S. Sundar, Unit 1 has so far generated 10,900 million units of electricity since its synchronisation with the Southern Grid following the reactor’s criticality on July 13, 2013.
- On the day of dedicating Unit 1 to the nation, Modi said five more 1,000 MW units would be built at Kudankulam with Russian partnership. The ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of units 3 and 4 was performed earlier this year.
- In this connection, Russia has offered India a new range of reactor units — the VVER-Toi (typical optimised, enhanced information) design — for the third and fourth units. An agreement between India and Russia was signed in December 2008 for setting up Kudankulam’s units 3 to 6.
Find Jobs Easily!!!
