Special watch on India's Narora n-plant lifted
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, March 29, IRNA
India-Atomic Energy
The "special watch" imposed on India's Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) because of safety concerns "is being lifted," the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has informed the Press Trust of India.
AERB said in its latest annual report that it had been "concerned about safety status of NAPS" for quite some time and therefore put the station under "special watch" following failure of the plant management to implement the Board's recommendations.
AERB secretary Om Pal Singh told Press Trust of India that the plant has since fulfilled its obligations and therefore the "special watch" status of NAPS is being lifted with effect from April 1, 2005." AERB said that after conducting a safety review in 2003, authorization for operation of NAPS was renewed up to June 2006 while it remained under special watch. The safety status will be reviewed again for operation following June 2006.
AERB said that in April 2003, six tons of heavy water leaked from the coolant tube of the second unit of NAPS leading to uptake of "tritium", a radioactive form of hydrogen, by five workers.
This and another event at NAPS during this period were classified as level two in the international nuclear event scale of zero to seven.
Level zero is of no safety significance while seven refers to a major accident and level two refers to an incident causing significant spread of contamination or failure in safety provisions.
During 2003-2004, AERB reported 31 "significant" safety related events in all of India's nuclear power plants, ten of which belonged to level two.
2160/1422
::IRNA No.022 29/03/2005 14:03 --End
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
