Russia Making Its Move In India
Russia: Another bear hug in the offing?
Natteri Adigal, 04 February 2008, Monday
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Russia will sign a nuclear agreement with India without waiting for withdrawal of international restrictions on technology transfer to New Delhi. But its international commitments to the NSG have delayed the Koodankulam Project’s expansion.
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PRIME MINISTER Victor Zubkov of the Russian Federation will undertake an official visit to India on Feb 12. No doubt the visit comes at a time when the Indo-Russian military equipment related business relations are passing through a discernible chill. India had been a willing chump, gobbling up shoddy goods from USSR for several decades during the cold war era. But the situation changed drastically after the balkanisation of the powerful Soviet Union, which was a superpower then. With the advent of economic liberalisation and globalisation, India is no more the captive market it once used to be, particularly for sale of military equipment.
Top defence services officers frown at the dubious quality of Russian arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. They are increasingly raising their voice against violation of delivery commitments in respect of spares, resulting in the loss of billions of rupees. Routine crashes of MIG fighters arising from inordinate delays in supply of maintenance spares have displeased the Air Force while the Navy is seething with anger at the repeated let down in respect of the Admiral Gorshkov carrier deal as well as other orders addressing the Navy’s modernisation. The Army too is not very happy with the Russian supply of obsolete equipment and insists on modern gadgets to keep pace with the times. Yet, the Russian PM is quite optimistic about swinging mega deals with India.
The game plan attempted by the Russians for reversing the falling trend in military commerce is to give the emerging nuclear power sector, the same ‘bear hug’ they once gave India’s steel and military sectors. Russia has started leveraging its old ‘friends’ in the different ‘left’ parties of India. The comrades have always been loyal to the erstwhile superpower and share a fine equation with highly placed bureaucrats in Indian PSUs (Public Sector Units).
“Nothing prevents Russia and India from signing a four-reactor accord within the framework of their international obligations,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, while preparing the groundwork for his Prime Minister’s February visit to India. He was however noncommittal about Viktor Zubkov being able to sign it during the visit. Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in early 2007 that his country could build, apart from the Koodankulam project in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu, six more reactors at other sites. At Koodankulam, the original proposal was to set up two VVER type reactors of 1000 MW each, which was later to be hiked to six units. The deal for the additional four plants had reached the very top of the decision-making apparatus. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow later in the year came a cropper and the signing of the deal was called off at the last minute. Russia is now anxious and willing to sign a nuclear agreement with India without waiting for the lifting of international restrictions on technology transfer to New Delhi.
At a New Year reception hosted by him to the foreign press, Lavrov declared, “We are ready to sign the nuclear agreement any time which suits India.” He underscored that Moscow is willing to “go as far as India was willing and ready for” in civilian nuclear cooperation. The Russian confidence stems from the high status still being enjoyed by powerful bureaucrats in the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) and the monopoly enjoyed by the nuclear power utility, NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd) despite pathetic performance. The said bureaucrats, who shifted their loyalty from the Congress party to the BJP during the late 1990s, now have the comrades to back them up and protect them from competitive forces.
It is of note that telecommunication is the only field in India where corporate houses with global connections like Reliance, Tata and Airtel have ushered in a paradigm shift in customer orientation, ending the monopoly of PSUs. In fields like aviation, the public sector babus of Air India and Indian (Airlines) are even now able to manipulate their erstwhile friends in AAI (Airports Authority of India), which abuses its monopoly position to deny a level playing field to private airlines. The Railways too have made a start with privatisation. The wily officers of the atomic energy department, on the other hand, have been able to completely shut out any semblance of accountability. Any public scrutiny of their affairs is scuttled by the brilliant officers through ingenious ‘management’ of the politicos and the media.
In an obvious attempt to create an atmosphere conducive for signing big deals with the Russians, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of India’s AEC has announced ahead of Victor Zubkov’s visit that the first 1000 MW unit of the Koodankulam nuclear power project would begin power generation in March 2008. If one is to share his optimism and that of SK Jain, chairman and managing director of NPCIL, the Russian company ASE (AtomStroyExport) will complete the second unit too by the end of 2008. Going by records, these claims have to be taken with tonnes of salt, not just a pinch of it! AEC is not known to be in the habit of keeping its promises!
Normally, AEC bosses make forecasts that extend into some obscure future, by which time the boss making the forecast will have comfortably retired. Only last month, NPCIL said at a function that the first unit was expected to reach ‘advanced stages of completion’ by December end. It has just erected the reactor pressure vessel of unit 2, which is expected to become operational only in late 2009. It is of note that the two light water reactors coming up in partnership with the Russian Federation use a technology entirely different from the PHWR (Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors) technology so far employed by NPCIL to build reactors. In contrast with natural uranium employed in PHWRs, the LWRs are supposed to run on enriched uranium supplied by the Russians during their lifetime.
The Russian company has recently signed a $ 5.8 billion contract with NEK (Nationalna Elektricheska Kompania) of Bulgaria to build two VVER reactors for the first time in Europe. The plant will be built at the existing but vacant site at Belene in northern Bulgaria. According to World Nuclear News (WNN), the Belene reactors will be AES-92 model VVER-1000 reactors boasting of a “unique combination of active and passive safety systems.” They will be operated using control and automation systems from an Areva/Siemens consortium called Carsib.
The Koodankulam project in India is the first project of ASE to feature the AES-92 model VVERs. Its previous model AES-91 VVER reactors began operations at Tianwan in China in 2007; it is close to finishing the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. The reactors supplied for the Koodankulam project, however, cannot have Carsib control and automation systems, because NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) has not given its approval to export the equipment to India. Moreover, the fuel supply will come under the IAEA safeguards (International Atomic Energy Agency), which will insist on full safety. In the absence of control and automation systems, it is anyone’s guess if these reactors costing over $ 4 billion will ever go on-line. “Russia’s international commitments to the Nuclear Suppliers Group have delayed the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project’s expansion plans,” Kakodkar conceded after his recent visit to the plant. Meanwhile, the land acquisition process is nearing completion at Jaitapur in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. The complex will house up to 10,000 MW nuclear power plants after the Indo-US deal comes through. NPCIL is going ahead with the pre-project work. But it is unlikely to make any meaningful contribution to the projects given its limited expertise.
