In a country like ours where life is cheap and good health for the poor a non-marketable commodity, safety standards are low and haphazard, and we must accept this as the status quo and talk about it, not about any ideal copybook safety which may only be reacheable in an ideal copybook welfare state.
The tailings (liquid waste) from the Jadugoda U mines are kept in 3 storage dams, called "tailing ponds", within 1.5 km of seven villages, one of which starts 40 m away, although the Atomic Energy Act lays down 5 km as the lowest permissible distance to human habitation16. For over 20 years these villagers have lived with high rates of cancer, stillbirths, and congenital defects in children. Even Jadugoda railway station has seen containers sitting on the public platform, leaking waste.
Waste disposal from nuclear reactors poses similar problems. The difficulty is that these wastes remain radioactive over years and decades and even centuries in some cases. If you think the problem is a minor one, ask yourself whether you will accept residential accommodation 40 metres from a nuclear waste dump
