Click to play videoMumbai: The crucial Nuclear Liabilities Bill is all set to be tabled in Parliament on Monday amidst opposition from the scientists and environmentalists.
"When the Prime Minister said we are now on the same dining table as the nuclear powers, he forgot to mention we were being invited not to dine but as the butlers to serve them," said an angry PK Iyengar, who is the former Atomic Energy Commission chairman.
CNN-IBN has learnt that the Bill in it's current form caps the liability of the nuclear plant operator in case of an accident at $64 million, but in case of an award of damages amounting to more than $64 million dollars the government will foot the bill.
The award of damages will be determined by a Commission for Nuclear Liability.
What worries scientists and environment activists is that the total liability will be limited to $468 million.
Moreover, claims have to be filed within 10 years or else those affected by a nuclear accident will get nothing
"And at $468 million the capping and forced limitations placed is the larger contention among technical scholars of the subject.
If liabilities for the Bhopal gas tragedy was $470 million in 1991, even by Reserve Bank of India's cost inflation index, the figure rationally they feel should have been upward of $1500 million.
Environment activists are particularly incensed over what they see as the generous terms given to the supplier of nuclear equipment and in this case the Americans.
"The supplier is not held liable. The whole idea is to socialise the risk, privatise the profit. It is the tax payer's money which will be paid again to the tax payer. That is why Greenpeace opposes the whole bill," says Greenpeace energy campaigner Karuna Raina.
"We have more than 17 nuclear power stations working. There was no capping so far. All of a sudden this capping has come. Obviously there must be some pressure from those people who want to invest in India. They do not want unlimited liability. And besides capping historically was brought in only to see that the private industry joins hands with the government to develop this new technology in the early 50s," says former nuclear scientist and Advocate-Nuclear Cause Dr BB Singh.
So even as the Bill comes up in Parliament the voices of discontent only seems to get louder even as the larger demand remains.
"We want this Bill to go to a Joint Parliamentary Committee which also holds a bigger consultation and a stake holder consultation and all the independent experts are also consulted," adds Raina.
Laden with the Women's Reservation Bill already, the question is does the government have any steam left for another battle?
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left Front have also voiced their concerns over the bill.
The Left has already decided to vote against the Bill with Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat saying the legislation is aimed at protecting the interests of the US nuclear industry.
"This is a really bad piece of legislation because it does not serve the interest of the people. But it looks after the interest of the US nuclear companies. According to this bill a supplier of nuclear reactors from America to India does not have any responsibility if there is an accident in India," Karat says.
"In case of the Bhopal tragedy also the operator, Union Carbide, if they had supplied the machinery they have no liability. So what we are saying is that there could be a manufacturing defect in the nuclear reactor and if there is an accident why should only the operator be liable. The man who supplied the reactor should also be liable. So why is such a legislation being brought in? Neither Russians nor French who have supplied reactors to India have demanded such protection," adds Karat.
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