Atomic Energy Commission chairman R K Sinha said the first unit of 1,000 Mw at the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu should be operational by the end of the calender year. Fuel loading, deferred after the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) directed upgrade of safety applications, was on and would be complete in one and a half months. “However, it will not be possible to give you an exact time when the first unit would be commissioned, especially in view of further directives from AERB and also because of a case pending in the Supreme Court. But I am quite optimistic that the first unit will be operational by the end of the calender year. The ongoing protests have not stopped the completion of the second unit of 1,000 Mw, which I expect to be operational by the first half of the next year,” he added. Sinha, at the sidelines of the India Nuclear Energy Summit-2012, said there were signs of local sentiments being exploited by anti-nuclear bodies at Kudankulam. “Excepting one or two villages, other villagers welcomed us with garlands during our visit in April, and they insisted on an early commissioning of the project. In my view, the Kudankulam project will be able to partially address the issue of power blackouts in Tamil Nadu,” he said. “We have developed our own membranes to address water contamination. Besides, the desalination plant using sea water at the Kalpakam nuclear project is under operations,” he added. However, Sinha admitted public acceptance of nuclear energy was a major challenge and had to be addressed by the AEC, the department of atomic energy and Nuclear Power Corporation. “We were not prepared to address a challenge of this magnitude. We will have to step up efforts to make the public aware of the effects of radiation on health. A study carried out in Kerala by monitoring 400,000 persons and 140,000 newborns revealed they were found neutral to radiation levels.” Similarly, concerns about depleting fish production following the discharge of hot water into the sea from the proposed 9,900-Mw Jaitapur nuclear project in Maharashtra have been successfully addressed. “In fact, similar studies out at other coastal nuclear power projects revealed that fish production has increased substantially,” he said. The AEC chief made a strong case for updating the knowledge base and bringing together scientific insight to allay fears about nuclear safety. “This is a major challenge but it can be tackled internationally through standards, codes and guides of radiation protection,” he said. Sinha, who recently led the Indian delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governor body meeting, said India was well accepted internationally for its success in carrying out its three-stage nuclear programme. Nuclear energy is key to achieve food, water, energy and health security, he said. Also, it had been effectively used in medicines, production and supply of seeds. He said uranium augmentation had yielded 75 per cent additional resources in the past five years and its continuous exploration was underway at mines in Andhra Pradesh. Of the 20 reactors operational, most have achieved a year of continuous operation. Tarapur unit-I has achieved a continuous operation of 590 days and Tarapur-III completed 525 days. Construction of four 700 Mw pressurised heavy water reactors were under various stages of completion and will start produce power by 2017. Plutonium-based fast breeder reactors were also under construction.