India

INDIA

ANALYSIS / ISSUES

India has been warming up to the idea of nuclear energy for the last two decades. Ten of India's 14 nuclear power reactors were constructed after 1984. A number of others are under construction and are being planned. The reasons for this mini-explosion are simple: India's rapidly growing economy and burgeoning energy needs. A Goldman Sachs report predicted India's GDP would rise by a factor of 40 between the years 2000 and 2050. With global oil prices a serious concern, India is hoping that a move towards nuclear power can fulfill a significant chunk of its energy needs over the coming decades.

For years, a hindrance to the expansion of India's nuclear energy needs has been the imposition of sanctions by the U.S. on India buying nuclear fuel and nuclear reactors from the international market, in particular from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. In 1968, nuclear power countries, such as Russia, China, France, Britain, and the US, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, preventing the transfer of nuclear technology to countries that had not signed the treaty. A decade later, in 1978, the US placed further sanctions against India for nuclear assistance. This decision came four years after India conducted its first atomic bomb test. It was in the 1950s that India purchased a nuclear reactor from Canada for ostensibly civilian purposes, but then used the plutonium from this reactor for its nuclear explosion in 1974 - a "peaceful" explosion in the words of then Prime Minsiter Indira Gandhi. Sanctions were strengthened in 1998 after more nuclear tests were conducted. India's refusal to sign the nonproliferation treaty has left its nuclear power industry at a loss. Its oldest plant at Tarapur is literally running out of fuel, and Russia is unable to help India restock because of the sanctions.

Indian officials say that the U.S. should withdraw the restrictions - termed "anachronistic" by Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee - and that India's civilian and military nuclear programs are separate. It had been unclear for some time, however, if the U.S. was going to oblige any time soon, notwithstanding the increasingly friendly relationship between the U.S. and India. In July 2005, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. to become the first official visit by an Indian leader in the last five years. Together, the two leaders reversed the longstanding US nuclear policy toward India. The US pledged to provide India with civilian nuclear technology to help meet the country's growing energy needs. In the spirit of compromise, India's Prime Minister Singh promised to take on many of the responsibilities of other nuclear technology nations, most importantly separating its civilian and military nuclear facilities. Among others, India will also allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit its civilian nuclear sites and work with the US to end its production of fissile material. The US Congress must first lift the former restrictions placed on India through legislation before these promises may be acted upon.

India's Operating Nuclear Power Reactors

India's Nuclear Power Reactors Under Construction