INDIA’S PARLIAMENT has adopted a controversial Bill that will open up the country’s $150 billion atomic energy market to overseas suppliers.
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill passed on Wednesday in the lower house of parliament with the support of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party.
It triples the compensation cap in the event of a nuclear accident to 15 billion rupees (€254 million) from an earlier version of the legislation.
It will now head to the upper house, where it is expected to pass easily, and will then become law after the president signs it.
The subject of fierce wrangling between the government and the opposition, the Bill is the final piece of a complex jigsaw connected to the 2008 atomic energy pact with the US.
This granted India access to foreign civil nuclear technology without it adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or forgoing its atomic weapons programme.
The US-India accord, endorsed by the Vienna-based 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, permitted India to trade in civil nuclear fuel and equipment in return for international inspection of 14 of its 22 atomic reactors.
The remaining eight military reactors and related facilities linked to India’s strategic deterrence would not be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency examination in the one-off deal backed by Washington.
According to highly complex provisions in the Liability Nuclear Bill, a claims commissioner – a senior bureaucrat or judicial officer appointed by the government – would adjudicate all claims within 90 days for lesser nuclear accidents, funds for which would eventually be disbursed from a federal nuclear liability fund.
Larger claims for more serious incidents would be decided by the respective provincial high courts or the federal supreme court within a decade. The damages for these claims would be limitless.
The Bill’s timeline provision takes it cue from India’s experience with the December 1984 gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal – which many environmentalists term the “chemical Hiroshima” – that killed more than 25,000 people, infected tens of thousands of others and permanently poisoned the environment.
Relatives of those killed in the Bhopal gas leak and others suffering terminal illnesses still await compensation in the case that has rumbled on for 26 years and is nowhere near closure.