Kalam plan akin to bribery: Activists

CHENNAI: Terming the 10-point development plan, formulated by former President Abdul Kalam for areas around Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP), as an attempt to “bribe” protestors to accept nuclear technology, a group of anti-nuclear activists consisting of scientists, jurists and social thinkers on Sunday said the government was trying to malign the movement in Idinthakarai by concocting conspiracy theories.  Addressing a press conference here after their three-day national yatra to Koodanulam, the group said the offer of infrastructure such as 500-bed hospitals and four-lane highways was an attempt to deviate from the core issue of safety of those living around the plant.  Former Justice of the Bombay High Court, Kolse Patil, said there was a move to communalise the protest against the plant and point to an imaginary “foreign hand”. Not only was the movement inclusive in a religious sense, with people across faiths participating in the relay fasts, people from different strata of  society were also part of the struggle.  He said countries such as Japan and Germany, which were trying to export their nuclear power technology to India, were in the process of phasing out their reactors and attain self-sufficiency through renewable energy.  Scientists in the group, including Balwari Sharma and V T Padhmanabhan said that only 0.75 per cent of the total power production in the country came from nuclear energy but consequences of a disaster could be on an extraordinary scale. They said that solar energy production in the Thar desert could provide 25 to 35 mw of power per square kilometre but the government and scientists were marketing nuclear energy as the only solution for  India’s power security.Also, they said, that issues such as adequate source of water for the running of KKNPP in case of an emergency are yet to be transparently explained.  This apart, the Kalpakkam experience has shown that the increase in temperature of coastal water  around the nuclear plant had resulted in plummeting of fishery resources and had put the livelihood of thousands of fisherfolk in jeopardy, the activists said.