India: Confidence vote clears path for trade?
24 July 2008
As India's first indigenously designed nuclear power plant celebrates its 25th anniversary, a vote of confidence in prime minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government could pave the way for the conclusion of the long-awaited US-India nuclear energy deal.
The US-India agreement has been a bone of contention within the Indian government for many months. The deal was the instigating agreement that should ultimately lead to India gaining access to world markets for nuclear fuel and energy technology from which it has been excluded in the past because of its status as non-signatory of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, India's communist parties have remained bitterly opposed to the bilateral on the grounds that its conditions would give the USA influence over Indian foreign policy. Specifically they object to the deal's prohibition of India testing nuclear weapons.
The confidence vote was called by Singh after a group of left-wing parties withdrew their support for the coalition government. Following a lengthy debate over two days, the motion expressing confidence in the Council of Ministers was adopted by 275 votes to 256.
The confidence vote further invigorates the US-India deal which many had thought to be dead in the water until the text of a draft copy of India's nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency was released earlier this month. The deal would see many of India's nuclear facilities brought into the global mainstream, widening the nuclear power facilities under international nuclear safeguards, and is a vital precursor to international nuclear trade.
Quarter century for MAPS
India's nuclear power program dates back to the 1960s, but since it carried out its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 it has remained outside the NPT and thus virtually isolated from international nuclear trade, although it has voluntarily opened many of its civilian nuclear operations to international inspection. In the meantime it has developed its own indigenous nuclear power industry. The first indigenously built Indian nuclear power plant, Madras Atomic Power Station unit 1 (MAPS 1, also known as Kalpakkam 1), celebrated its 25th anniversary of being synchronized to the Indian grid on 23 July.
The two 220 MWe pressurized heavy water reactors at the site, operated by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), are Indian-designed based on Canadian technology, and early models in a program which now counts nearly 4000 MWe of installed capacity and count total 20,000 MWe by 2020. However, nuclear development in energy-hungry India is stymied by its exclusion from international trade, especially its inability to buy uranium - of which it does not have large indigenous resources - on the international market.
Bharat ready
Indian companies are already readying themselves for the future potential trade opportunities. Following recent reports that Indian company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) was preparing to increase its capacity for domestic and international nuclear forging contracts, power equipment manufacturer Bharat Heavy Electricals has announced that it plans to triple spending on nuclear components manufacture once the US-India agreement is signed.