A 10-member Atomic Energy Regulatory Board team is camping at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) site for inspecting the first of the 2 X 1,000 MWe reactors, which has been loaded with enriched uranium fuel assemblies and is ready for criticality. The AERB team, which reached Anu Vijay Township, KKNPP employees’ residential colony, from Mumbai on Wednesday morning, went to the KKNPP site to start the inspection immediately. A senior Nuclear Power Corporation of India official, on condition of anonymity, told The Hindu that the AERB team had come to KKNPP for a “routine inspection” before giving the mandatory final nod for criticality. The team members are expected to examine the fuel loading, jointly done by the engineers of NPCIL and Atomstroyexports, the Russian firm constructing the reactors and other post-fuel loading parameters of the reactor. The exercise is likely to be completed within four days. Even though the AERB team gives the green signal for criticality after the ongoing final round of inspection, the NPCIL is not immediately expected to go in for the next stage of criticality, it is reliably learnt, as a case challenging the fuel loading and attainment of criticality is pending before the Supreme Court. “We prefer to wait till the case pending before the Supreme Court is cleared,” the official said. “However, we will make all arrangements ready for commissioning the reactor that has Third Generation Plus safety features. Once we get the favourable orders, we will go in for the much-awaited criticality of the plant,” he noted. If everything goes well as being expected by the NPCIL, the reactor may attain criticality in the third or fourth week of November and sizable quantum of electricity will start cascading from the reactor in the second or third week of December.