Although the Indian government wants to promote the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal in terms of power generation, the deal has very little to do with power generation. Nuclear power contributes about 2 percent of the current electricity generations in India. At present, India was producing 3,300 MW. In 2020, the production would be 7,000 MW. According to the Planning Commission and the Prime Minister, the capacity of nuclear power would be 20,000 MW in the year 2020. In order to get there India will buy second-hand reactors from the U.S. to produce 13,000 MW of nuclear power. India will have to spend about Rs. 2 lakh crore for reactors and another Rs. 8 lakh crore to set them up with fuel facilities to achieve that goal. The Indian budget is only Rs. 6.5 lakh crore per year. Thus, India will spend two times more than the country’s annual budget on setting up these vintage reactors only. Even if India were to achieve a 50% increase in nuclear power generation (which is unlikely) such a step would only increase India’s overall electricity output by one percent at most, and would only increase India’s overall energy output by a fraction of one percent. The reason, USA is pushing so hard that India should accept the deal, is, that, this deal is nothing but nuclear non-proliferation treaty in a different name. If MM Singh is a democrat, he should have organized a Referendum or at least a voting in the joint session of the Parliament. The real issue is nuclear weapons. USA do n
