NEW DELHI: By finalizing a deal to transfer two large nuclear power reactors to India, Russia this week broke an international boycott on transfer of nuclear equipment imposed as punishment when New Delhi first exploded a nuclear device almost 30 years ago.

Concluded in Moscow during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit, the deal facilitates transfer of two reactors for a three billion dollar power station at Kudankulam village on the coast of southern Tamil Nadu where they are expected to generate 2,000 megawatts of power.

While the international boycott slowed down India’s ambitious nuclear programme it by no means halted it, either for the production of power or for defence, as demonstrated by a second round of tests in May 1998.

India is not a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and does not accept full-scope inspections of its nuclear facilities by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), established in 1975 and of which Russia is a member, prohibits the export of nuclear technology to countries which do not accept full-scope safeguards.

Indeed, soon after the present Bush administration took over, it demanded that Russia stop supplying nuclear fuel to reactors at the Tarapore power plant near Mumbai city although the plant observes full IAEA safeguards and was in fact originally installed by the US power giant General Electric in 1969.

The US stopped supplies of nuclear fuel for the reactors after 1974 but India kept the reactors running by sourcing fuel from France and China, apart from Russia which kept up supply even after the 1998 nuclear tests.

Leading anti-nuclear and environmental groups like Greenpeace International have charged the Indian government with maintaining close links between its nuclear energy and its nuclear weapons programmes.

Russia appears unconcerned by charges that India’s nuclear power and weapon programmes are linked.

The conclusion of the Kudankulam deal this week has not so far evoked any reaction from Washington and the Hindu newspaper’s analyst C. Raja Mohan has speculated that it might even serve as a cue for Washington to review its policy on non-cooperation with India in the civilian nuclear energy sector.

According to the activists the project has all the makings of another Chernobyl and is being pushed through without making environmental, seismological or epidemiological assessments in a thickly- populated, poverty-stricken area of the country. —Dawn/The InterPress News Service.