Various civic society groups in India are opposing the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill - it places the liability of a nuclear accident on the tax-payers; private vendors who built it go free.

Kuppan commits the crime but Suppan gets the punishment! This is exactly how the infamous Civil Nuclear Liability Bill of the UPA government works. According to this legislation, if there was an accident in a nuclear power facility, the onus for paying the damages will be on the operator of the facility and not on the supplier of the equipment or the builder of the facility.

Consider one of the famous liability litigations. Some 18 years ago, on February 27, 1992 (to be exact), a 79-year-old American woman called Stella Liebeck from Albuquerque, New Mexico ordered a cup of coffee from a local McDonald’s restaurant. She had placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the lid to add cream and sugar and in the process spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap. Liebeck suffered third-degree burns and had to be hospitalized for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. When McDonald’s turned down Liebeck’s claim of her medical costs, she sued the company for “gross negligence.” The trial took place in August 1994 and the jury concluded that McDonald's was 80% responsible for the incident and awarded Liebeck US$200,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages. The judge reduced these amounts a bit and both parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000. If this case was conducted along the lines of the Indian Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, the local franchisee or the server who served the hot coffee would pay the damages to Liebeck and McDonald’s itself would go scot free.

A nuclear accident is much more serious and deadly than spilling a cup of coffee. Not just one individual but an entire locality could be wiped out in a nuclear catastrophe. Nevertheless, the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill provides for a cap of Rs 2,400 crores by way of damages in case of a nuclear accident and the Indian government will facilitate compensation through the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL), the operator of the nuclear facilities in the country.

The Indian government’s passing the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill is an important precondition that allows US companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse to seek insurance cover at home. Without our liability law, US firms will not get insurance cover for their projects in India. Other foreign companies such as Areva (France) and Rosatom Corp (Russia) have also been lobbying in New Delhi for this kind of liability bill. Indian companies like Reliance, Tata Power and GMR are also keen on this operator-based liability arrangement.

The Indian government fixes the civil liability at approximately Rs 2,400 crores because the manufacturers insist that liability cannot be impractically high. But the anti-nuclear activists, citing the tragic Bhopal experiences, point out the lack of criminal liability in the Bill and argue that the liability clause is not stringent enough.

While the foreign and Indian companies will make profits from their nuclear commerce, the NPCIL, a state-run and public-funded agency will become the guarantor of compensation in case of liabilities. In other words, the affected parties (the Indian public in this case) will pay compensation to themselves with their own monies and the profiteering capitalists will go scot free with their interests intact. What an ingenious plan!?

This legislation on liability will facilitate foreign nuclear companies’ investment in India, and will also necessitate suitable amendment to the Atomic Energy Act 1962 that will allow private entry into nuclear business. This civil nuclear liability regime would pave the way for India joining the international convention, and the amended Atomic Energy Act would facilitate Indian companies’ entry into nuclear commerce.

The dangerous combination of secretive state, profiteering companies and careerist nuclear scientists will not be in the best interests of the Indian public. Like the Bhopal victims who are running from pillar to post even after 25 years of the worst industrial disaster, we will be out on the street with radiation illnesses and without any kind of help from the authorities.

The UPA government that gave a nod to the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill back in November 2009 is planning to push the Bill during the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament. The Prime Minister has even sought the backing of the opposition BJP as his ruling combine does not have the sufficient votes in the Rajya Sabha.

The National Alliance of Anti-nuclear Movements (NAAM) as well as its constituent organizations opposes the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill that seeks to protect the interests of the rich and powerful while leaving the Indian citizens high and dry on the nuclear highway. NAAM exhorts the people of India to ask their Members of Parliament to vote against this anti-people legislation.

From

National Alliance of Anti-nuclear Movements

42/27 Esankai Mani Veethy

Parakkai Road Junction

Nagercoil 629 002

Tamil Nadu

Email: koodankulam@yahoo.com

To
Dr. Manmohan Singh
The Prime Minister of India

South Block, Raisina Hill
New Delhi 110 001

Phone: 91-11-23012312

Fax: 91-11-23019545 / 91-11-23016857

Email: http://pmindia.nic.in/write.htm

Cc:
Smt. Sonia Gandhi
The Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance

10 Janpath
New Delhi 110 001
Phone: 91-11-23792263, 23019080 (O); 23014161, 23014481 (R)

Fax : 91-11-23018651
E-Mail: soniagandhi@sansad.nic.in

Dear Dr. Singh,

We, the undersigned, hereby express our grave concern over the recent press reports that ‘The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2009’ is planned to be tabled in the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament and the UPA government is apparently bent upon rushing it through without holding fair and transparent public consultations, regardless of its profound consequences.

A quantum leap in installed capacity for nuclear power generation, from the current level of 4,120 MW to 63,000 MW by 2032, which you have committed yourself to, is but an invitation to disaster given the intrinsically hazardous and potentially catastrophic nature of the industry. It is necessary to further bear in mind that the health burden, clean-up and recovery costs for damages arising out of any nuclear accident are irreversible in consequence and generational in effect, poisoning not just human beings in the vicinity of a nuclear plant but the web of life itself through air, water and soil contamination.

Yet, pretty much shockingly, the nuclear liability bill, approved by the Union Cabinet in last November, understandably overriding strong objections even from two nodal ministries, viz. Finance and Environment, appears to pave the path for the entry of private enterprises, known to cut corners to maximize profits, not just as equipment suppliers but also as operators of nuclear power plants.

The nuclear liability bill, as per the reports leaked in the media, proposes to cap the total liability amount to 3 hundred million Special Drawing Rights. This works out to just about a paltry US$ 450 million or Rs 2100 crore per accident. We find it inconceivable and outrageous that any cap, let alone such a meagre one, be placed on the total liability, regardless of the scale of disaster.

Ironically, the total liability cap amount now being proposed, $450 million, is marginally less than the amount awarded in the Bhopal Gas case way back in 1989, which was a gross under-assessment of liability even at that time. Today, more than two decades since, and given that a major nuclear disaster could very much dwarf the Bhopal disaster, the proposed nuclear liability cap appears to be truly a slap in the face of the people of this country. Further, while the supplier of nuclear equipment would enjoy standard indemnity, the maximum liability of the operator reportedly would not exceed the ridiculously low amount of Rs 300 crore or thereabout. In fact, it may even be as low as Rs 100 crore. This cannot but be considered as a brazen move towards helping profiteering corporations while penalizing the unsuspecting Indian people, who have elected you to the office you hold.

We further draw your attention to the public statement of former Attorney General of India, Soli Sorabjee, that putting a cap on nuclear liability violates the very Right to Life as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

It is shocking that a bill that compromises the Right to Life is being pushed through without soliciting the opinion of the people of the country, whose health and well-being, safety and human rights, and life, are being put directly in danger.

This is just unacceptable. We strongly condemn any attempt to introduce any caps whatsoever on nuclear liability and that too without widespread public debate on the issues involved.

Hence we demand that the contents of the proposed nuclear liability cap bill be disclosed forthwith to the public.

We further demand that widespread public consultations be held before any attempt is made to introduce such profound changes in the nuclear liability regime.

Sincerely,

________

P.S. The Protest to the Prime Minister of India against ‘The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2009’ Petition to Prime Minister of India was created by National Alliance of Anti-nuclear Movements and written by Nilanjana Biswas, Arati Chokshi, Saraswati Kavula, Anand Patwardhan, Prem Verma, Kabir Arora, Santanu Chacraverti, S P Udayakumar, Sukla Sen (sukla.sen@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here atwww.PetitionOnline.com as a public service.