Indian
Express: Chennai: Thursday, 01 October 2015.
The refusal
to make public a study commissioned by Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd
(BHAVINI) to check the claimed presence of a sub-surface volcano near the
nuclear power station has sparked a controversy. Environment activists believe
that the report might confirm their suspicions on this. BHAVINI runs the
Kalpakkam nuclear power station.
The
environment activist group Poovulagin Nanbargal (PN) which filed the RTI appeal
argued that the report might confirm their fears about presence of a volcano
near the nuclear station. “If a volcano is indeed present off the coast, then
the atomic power station must have added safety features as was the case in
Japan,” said G Sunderrajan, coordinator of PN.
In 2013,
officials of the Kalpakkam Atomic Power Station representing the NPCIL had
wanted to debunk the volcano theory raised by M Vetriselvan, a lawyer and PN
member, in a writ petition in the Madras HC.
In the
counter-affidavit, the station director, MAPS, Kalpakkam had stated that Rs
12.08 lakh had been set aside for a study by expert agencies to ‘allay doubts
on the existence of the alleged volcano’. He added that Indian history of the
past 500-700 years had no mention of any volcanic activity near Kalpakkam or
Pondy coast.
The AERB was
aware of information in the Smithsonian Global Volcanism programme official
website about a volcano 100-110 km from Kalpakkam, the board’s chief public
information officer Dr Pankaj Tandon had replied in an RTI in 2013.
The study was
done by the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad, which
replied in the RTI filed in August this year that the report had been submitted
to BHAVINI.
Both BHAVINI
and NGRI refused to provide a copy of the report under the RTI, citing
confidentiality.
“This study
was done using public funds and they are bound to show it to the public,” said
Sunderrajan. Officials of BHAVINI were not available to comment.
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