Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker, M. Appavu, has objected to the setting up of a Spent Fuel Storage facility on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site, citing increasing Chinese presence in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
Talking to here on Thursday, Mr. Appavu, who is also the MLA from Radhapuram Assembly Constituency under which the KKNPP is located, said that the Union government should reconsider its decision to locate the Spent Fuel Storage facility at Kudankulam. “As long as Sri Lanka was a friendly nation, the situation was different. But, there is an increasing presence of China in the island nation which is posing a danger to KKNPP,” he said.
All the southern districts of Tamil Nadu and southern parts of Kerala would be impacted in case of any untoward incident, he warned. Besides, a huge facility of the Indian Space Research Organisation was also located at Mahendragiri, which is just 25 km away from Kundankulam. He said that the Centre could shift the location for the Spent Fuel Storage facility to the unused mines of Kolar Gold Mines in Karnataka or to the Thar desert of Rajasthan. “Ideally, this facility should be located at a place that is uninhabited by people,” the Speaker said.
It is still not clear as to where the spent fuel of unit one and unit two of KKNPP that are generating power for the last few years are stocked. “In a democracy, the government should be transparent and make it public where the spent fuel is being stocked to date,” he said.
When that is not decided yet, why should the Centre finalise the spent fuel storage facility for units three and four which are still under construction, the TN Speaker asked. He also appealed to the Centre not to further expand the KKNPP where six units have been proposed and construction work is underway.
