Hurdles ahead

Now that Washington has accepted India's Separation Plan, the next hurdles are Congress and the NSG.

BY R. RAMACHANDRAN in New Delhi

ASSUMING that a nuclear deal with the United States was necessary for India, the negotiators could not have bargained for anything better. Before March 2, when President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh successfully concluded the agreement on Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation, no one would have given even a slim chance for the proposed Civil-Military Separation Plan to be accepted by the U.S. The plan sought to address all the concerns of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) that had been voiced at various fora but fell well short of U.S. expectations. The DAE's stand was that the indigenous fast breeder programme, research reactors and the few power-generating Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) could not be put under safeguards.

Indeed, Nicholas Burns, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the key negotiator on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, after his discussions with Indian authorities in the run-up to Bush's visit, had said that a lot more work remained to be done and the deal was unlikely to be concluded before Bush left India. The U.S. Ambassador to India, David Mulford, too had indicated that the number of facilities being offered by India for safeguards were too few. The reactions of U.S. non-proliferation experts also seemed to suggest that the Separation Plan outlined by Manmohan Singh in his suo motu statement in Parliament on February 27 would not fly with the U.S. negotiators.

In his address, the Prime Minister had said: [O]ur Separation Plan entails identifying in phases a number of our thermal nuclear reactors as civilian facilities to be placed under IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards, amounting to roughly 65 per cent of the total installed thermal nuclear power capacity at the end of the Separation Plan" (emphasis added).

By specifying only thermal nuclear reactors (as against fast nuclear reactors), the Prime Minister ruled out placing the "indigenous fast breeder programme" under safeguards. He also made it explicit when he said: "We have made it clear that we cannot accept safeguards on our indigenous Fast Breeder Programme." This is what the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, had desired for reasons that included strategic importance of the breeder besides the R&D nature of the programme involving advanced technology and proprietary know-how (Frontline, March 10).

With a clinched deal in his pocket, Manmohan Singh detailed the implementation of this Separation Plan in his statement on March 7, after Bush's visit ended on March 4. Even though a number of ambiguities and unclear statements remain, this detailed Separation Plan - which the U.S. has surprisingly accepted as a credible proposal - includes the following:

Fourteen of the 22 thermal reactors in operation or under construction, amounting to 65 per cent of installed thermal nuclear capacity, would be placed under safeguards in a phased manner during 2006-14;

(2) Only 220 MWe thermal PHWRs - as against 540 MWe PHWRs - would be placed under safeguards in the first phase;

(3) All future civilian thermal and breeder reactors would also be placed under safeguards;

(4) Several additional DAE facilities have been declared as civilian, though this was irrelevant from the perspective of the IAEA safeguards regime for facilities like heavy water plants and academic institutions; and, significantly,

(5) The 40 MWt CIRUS, built with Canadian assistance in 1960, would be shut down and the imported fissile core of the 1 MWt research reactor Apsara (built in 1955) would be shifted out of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) complex and relocated under safeguards.

The statement also clarified that `end of the Separation Plan' refers to the year 2014. Significantly, the logic of arriving at a 65 per cent capacity under safeguards, which 14 reactors would come under safeguards, and the sequencing. Assuming that there is an underlying rationale for the figure of 65 per cent, a fair guess as to which reactors would be placed under safeguards can be made based on the remarks of Kakodkar and other ex-DAE scientists at various times.

Currently, 15 thermal reactors together have an installed capacity of 3,310 MWe of which four - TAPS-1&2 (160 MWe each) at Tarapur and RAPS-1&2 (100 and 200 MWe respectively) at Rawatbhatta - are already under safeguards. Seven reactors, with a total capacity of 3,420 MWe , are in different stages of construction of which Koodankulam-1&2 (1,000 MWe each) will come under safeguards on commissioning. That is, a total of 2,620 MWe of the total installed capacity of 6,730 MWe is already under safeguards. All the under-construction reactors would be commissioned between 2007-08.

Now, 65 per cent of the total capacity of 22 reactors amounts to about 4,375 MWe. Given that 2,620 MWe capacity is already under safeguards, about 1,755 MWe more need to be brought under safeguards. Since 540 MWe PHWRs are explicitly ruled out, the operational TAPS-4 and under-construction TAPS-3 will be off safeguards. So, the balance is easily achieved by placing eight 220 MWe PHWRs (total 1,760 MWe) under safeguards. Three possibilities arise: (1) All eight operational; (2) Six operational + two under construction; or (3) Four operational + four under construction. Now, one of the principles of separation that have been followed is to designate an entire hub of strategic importance as military even if it included facilities that are not normally engaged in strategic activities. This implies that MAPS-1&2 at Kalpakkam will be off safeguards because the complex also houses the "strategically important" breeder programme, the naval reactor project and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research.

NAPS-1&2 at Narora in Uttar Pradesh is in the heritage of the Canadian CANDU reactors at RAPS and so can be placed under safeguards. Now, since RAPS-1&2 are already under safeguards, it makes sense to have the maximum number of safeguarded reactors in the RAPS complex for reasons of logistics and minimum intrusive inspections. By placing RAPS-3&4 and the under-construction RAPS-5&6, there would be six reactors at the same site. That leaves two more to be identified from KAPS-1&2 at Kakrapar, Kaiga-1&2 and 3&4. Choice of KAPS for safeguards - which corresponds to option (2) above - makes sense as it would leave the entire Kaiga complex out of safeguards.

As regards the nature of safeguards, the Prime Minister has stated that an India-specific agreement will be negotiated with the IAEA for safeguards in perpetuity but with the provisions for corrective measures that India may take to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel over the lifetime of reactors. This is to prevent situations like what India faces with TAPS-1&2 today following changes in export laws in supplier countries. It is not clear whether this would include provision for withdrawal of safeguards in case of disruption in fuel supply. However, the following steps have been envisaged to avoid disruptions: the U.S. will incorporate fuel supply assurances in the umbrella U.S. - India Cooperation Agreement to be placed before Congress; the U.S. will also help India build a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel; and, if disruption occurs, both countries would jointly convene a group of "friendly supplier countries" to find ways of restoring supply.

The logic of or rationale for 2014 marking the end of the Separation Plan is also not clear because all the plants currently under construction would be commissioned by 2008. Though the construction time line for the future thermal nuclear projects is not known, pre-project phase work on the RAPS-7&8 and Kaiga - 5&6 projects has begun and these plants are expected to be commissioned after 2015. According to DAE sources, however, the 2014 time frame has nothing to do with this but is essentially a time buffer to ensure that all the mechanisms of safeguards implementation and fuel supply work satisfactorily before future civilian reactors are brought under safeguards.

Clearly, Bush's political will to conclude the agreement would seem to have overridden the dissenting views in his bureaucracy. However, India's offer may still not pass muster with the U.S. Congress, especially given Bush's all-time low political ranking back home, but the ball is now entirely in the U.S. court. India, on its part, can claim to have fulfilled the first phase of its commitments towards realising nuclear cooperation with the U.S.

The next, and in some sense more important, stage would be negotiations at the international forum of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Changes in the NSG Guidelines - in all likelihood India-specific - are essential before any nuclear trade with India can begin, irrespective of the outcome at the U.S. Congress. One could argue that even if Congress rejects the move, the U.S. could use its clout with the major nuclear suppliers to make an exception for India.

Of course, since the U.S. was the prime mover in the creation of the NSG as well as in its subsequent policy of full-scope safeguards for transfer of nuclear-fuel-cycle-related material and technology to nuclear non-weapon states (NNWs) in 1992, NSG deliberations are likely to depend crucially on the Congressional passage or otherwise of changes to the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Bush has stated that he would get the response of Congress within three months. That would also tie with the timing of the NSG plenary in late May. He has already sent in a draft proposal to Congress for consideration of the appropriate Congressional Committees.

In fact, the move to shut down CIRUS, notwithstanding India's claimed sovereign right to designate what is civil and what is military, is presumably to ensure that Canada does not vote against any proposed India-specific changes at the NSG. The reactor is based on Canadian design and U.S. supplied heavy water initially. It is generally believed that CIRUS provided the plutonium for the 1974 `Peaceful Nuclear Explosion'. This, Canada and the U. S. claim, was in violation of the cooperation agreements with the two governments. In the context of the proposed civil-military separation, there have been growing demands in Canada and the U.S. - from the non-proliferation lobby in particular - that CIRUS be brought under safeguards. Given that CIRUS is within the strategic hub of BARC, it has been decided to shut it down by 2010 rather than have safeguards inspectors within BARC even though a refurbished CIRUS went on stream only in 2004 with a life extension of 15 years.

Also, with Australia refusing to supply uranium because of its domestic laws, Canada would be the next important source apart from emerging suppliers like Kazakhstan. In any case, a new higher capacity Multi Purpose Research Reactor is proposed to be built in BARC at the location of Apsara. This is likely to become operational by 2010, which matches the deadline set for CIRUS. The need to relocate the Apsara core by 2010 may also revive the old proposal for a research reactor at Andhra University, which could then be brought under safeguards.

Having successfully negotiated with the U.S. administration a Separation Plan that safeguards India's R&D and strategic interests, it is to be hoped that it crosses the next big hurdles at the U.S. Congress and the NSG. In the event of a favourable NSG response in May, an India-specific safeguards agreement and subsequently an Additional Protocol need to be carefully negotiated with the IAEA.