Fountainhead of research

The research facility has fulfilled Homi Bhabha's "vision of abundant economic nuclear power".

THE "Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is a technological powerhouse."

"We have the ability to face extreme challenges."

"There is nothing that BARC cannot do."

"BARC is the premier institute in science and technology in India and is perhaps the largest research and development [facility] in the world under a common roof, where the widest spectrum of activities in nuclear science and technology is pursued."

These are the views of Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, Director of BARC, Dr. R. Chidambaram, former AEC Chairman, and Dr. B. Bhattacharjee, former BARC Director, respectively.

On the premises of BARC, a plaque near a newly erected fountain reads: "Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the fountainhead of the DAE's multi-faceted programme, Golden Jubilee, 20th January, 2007."

The BARC campus, spread over 2,088 acres and ringed by the Arabian Sea and the Trombay hills, houses the 600-metre-long Modular Laboratories and several critical facilities - the New Super Computer Centre, Dhruva, CIRUS and Apsara research reactors, a crystal technology laboratory, a desalination complex, central workshops, a 40-metre-tall integral test loop for conducting safety experiments connected with the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) and a robotics complex, and so on. A workforce of 13,000, including 4,200 engineers and scientists, is engaged in a bewildering variety of activities, nuclear and non-nuclear.

The man who displayed remarkable foresight in founding this versatile institution was Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, scientist, institution-builder, piano player, painter, specialist in pencil sketches and an administrator of astonishing ability. According to Dr. P.K. Iyengar, former AEC Chairman, when Bhabha was asked in 1942 how he was going to organise India's nuclear power programme with only a handful of nuclear scientists available at that time, he replied, "Indians have been sitting at the bottom [of the ladder] and philosophising. I want to turn them to science and technology".

Organised research in nuclear sciences started in India as a consequence of a letter Bhabha wrote to J.R.D. Tata on August 19, 1943. Bhabha remarked in that letter that "the lack of proper conditions and intelligent financial support hamper the development of science in India at a pace which the talent in the country would warrant". On September 2, 1943, Tata wrote an encouraging reply to Bhabha. Subsequently, Bhabha wrote a formal letter on March 12, 1944, to Sir Sorab Saklatvala, chairman of the Dorab Tata Trust, in which he proposed with remarkable foresight the setting up of an institution so that "... when nuclear energy has been successfully applied for power production in, say, a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for its experts but will find them ready at hand". Thus was born the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

"This was his vision of abundant economic nuclear power, which he felt was so vital for the development of India," says Prof. M.G.K. Menon, in his article titled "Life and Work of H.J. Bhabha" in the November-December 1990 issue of Nu Power. Menon adds, "This letter was written more than a year before the Hiroshima; when the work on the atom bomb was being carried out with the greatest secrecy in the West and that the only knowledge Homi Bhabha had was that nuclear fission had been discovered."

The trustees of the Dorab Tata Trust, on April 15, 1944, decided to give financial support to the institute.

The TIFR started functioning from June 1, 1945, on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Bhabha was its Director. In September 1949, it was shifted to Mumbai. The AEC was set up in 1948 largely at Bhabha's instance.

The DAE was set up in 1956 with Bhabha as its Secretary. According to Menon, Bhabha was convinced that abundant supply of energy is the first requirement of modern civilisation. "He was also convinced that as far as India was concerned, there were serious limitations in respect of fossil fuels in magnitude and location... and therefore, it would be vital for India to develop atomic energy."

What greatly helped Bhabha in setting up the AEC, the DAE and the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET, which was later renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) was his proximity to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. They were great friends.

"The Department of Atomic Energy owes a great debt of gratitude to Pandit Nehru and Dr.Bhabha whose contributions were responsible for our country reaching an enviable position on the world map of atomic energy," says Dr. M.R. Srinivasan, former AEC Chairman, in Nuclear India (October 26, 1969), a publication brought out to celebrate Nehru's birth centenary and the AEC's 40th anniversary. "The policies charted out by Dr. Bhabha were fully supported by Pandit Nehru for implementation. As a result, within a decade of launching its atomic energy programme, India became one of the first ten most advanced countries in this new and complex technology.

"India achieved the distinction of commissioning Asia's first research reactor Apsara in 1956. This reactor was built on our own excepting for the fuel elements, which were given by the United Kingdom. With the confidence gained from this achievement, Bhabha drew up a three-stage long-term nuclear power programme for India."

On August 4, 1956, Apsara went critical at the AEET. A press note released by Bhabha says, "At 3-45 this afternoon, August the 4th, India's first atomic reactor went into operation, or to use the technical phrase, became critical. This means that the reactor released atomic energy for the first time through a self-sustaining chain reaction... "

The same day, Bhabha wrote a letter to Nehru, addressing him as "My Dear Bhai". He wrote: "... When I got home at seven this evening, my mother told me that there was an announcement on the subject from you. I conveyed your congratulations to our young men. They richly deserved them, as they worked with real devotion and enthusiasm... "

On January 20, 1957, Nehru formally inaugurated the AEET, and named the swimming-pool reactor Apsara. In his speech, Nehru gave a solemn assurance: "No man can prophesy the future. But I should like to say on behalf of my government and myself - and I think that I can say with some assurance on behalf of any future Government of India - that whatever might happen, whatever the circumstances, we shall never use this atomic energy for evil purposes."

On January 12, 1967, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the AEET and renamed it Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in memory of Bhabha who had died in an aircrash on January 24, 1966.

By then, BARC had become a unique nuclear research centre, achieving success in developing technologies for building nuclear reactors, fabricating fuel and reprocessing irradiated fuel and for wide application of radioisotopes. If Dr. A.N. Prasad, former BARC Director, describes BARC as "the cradle of India's atomic energy programme", it is because it developed not only India's three-stage nuclear power programme but also a variety of research centres and the DAE's public sector undertakings. BARC engineers designed and developed the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which constitute the first stage of India's nuclear electricity programme. Banerjee said, "Today, we have a proven and mature PHWR technology. We have complete mastery of the nuclear fuel, right from mining of natural uranium ore to finally disposing the waste in safe repositories."

India has entered the second stage of its nuclear power programme with the 500-MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), which is under construction at Kalpakkam. BARC's contribution to the third stage is immense: its engineers have designed and developed the 300-MWe AHWR, which will use thorium and uranium-233 as fuel. The excavation for the AHWR's construction is expected to begin by the end of this year. BARC is working on the futuristic Compact High Temperature Reactor (CHTR), which will generate not only electricity but produce hydrogen.

Research centres such as the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC) in Kolkata, the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam and the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) in Indore had their origins at BARC. The VECC formed a part of BARC's laser programme before it struck out independently.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited that operates 17 power reactors and is building five more had its genesis as the Power Projects Engineering Division of BARC. Electronics Corporation of India Limited was set up in Hyderabad in 1967 under BARC to design and fabricate instruments to support the nuclear electricity programme. Today, it supplies sophisticated equipment for the control rooms of nuclear power stations. The Atomic Fuels Division of BARC metamorphosed into the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad.

When Uranium Corporation of India Limited established its first mill - the Jaduguda Uranium Metal Plant - near Tatanagar for processing uranium, BARC contributed significantly to the chemical processing of uranium ore.