KKNPP on damage control

CHENNAI: In their very first media interaction in Chennai ever since protests held up the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, project officials on Thursday said that they were seeking to clear the “communication gap” between the community and the scientists through new communication tools. While the Centre-appointed expert committee and the state panel would go about their work towards reconciliation, officials at the plant were in the process of creating new documents and short films to explain the safety aspects to people in “layman’s terms”.Admitting that “language used” by the scientists to explain the emergency preparedness to the local community near the plant could have “communicated a wrong message”, Project Director of KKNPP, K Kasinath Balaji, said that a seven-member panel headed by the Station Director of KKNPP Unit 1 and 2 was preparing documents to be published and distributed to the community. The documents would explain the safety measures at the plant in “simple, layman’s terms”. A short film showcasing the emergency preparedness and the safety measures was also being shot. “We learnt a lesson in a bitter way,” Balaji told reporters.Meanwhile, the stir has hit the commissioning work of the power plant rather badly as a majority of the 2,000-strong skilled workers, who were mobilised from all over the world, had gone back after the work was stalled.“We are shaken; we are hurt,” Balaji said, explaining that the stir had pushed the deadline for commissioning the first unit by months. When asked if March would be the revised deadline, he said, “We hope that the impasse will be solved shortly.”Allaying fears about radioactive waste, R S Sundar, Station Director for Units 1 and 2, said that the spent fuel would be reprocessed and reused as fuel in the units. “During reprocessing, whatever small amounts of plutonium and other wastes are extracted would be mixed with cement and made into blocks. They would be stored within the plant and would be continuously monitored.” But, when asked about the quantum of such wastes that would be generated, he said that he could not provide the figures off hand. “These wastes would degenerate within 40 to 60 years,” he added.