August 17, 2007	Friday	Sha’aban 3, 1428

NEW DELHI: The future of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal looks uncertain, but the government has already selected sites for new atomic power plants, a report said on Thursday.

India's Department of Atomic Energy has already identified five coastal locations for the plants it intends to acquire, the Business Line newspaper reported. The atomic energy department plans to generate 30,000 megawatts of power from imported nuclear fuel, S.K. Jain, chief of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, told the daily.

Western Gujarat state, southern Andhra Pradesh and the two eastern provinces of West Bengal and Orissa will host the plants, each with a capacity to generate 6,000-8,000 megawatts of electricity.

The Indo-US pact, which covers civil nuclear technology and seeks to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce after a gap of three decades, was concluded last month, capping two years of negotiations.—AFP