Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the
foundation of 2,800 Megawatt nuclear
power plant in Fatehabad district of Haryana on 13 January 2014.The project
named as Anu Vidyut Pariyojna, will have four units of 700 MWes each and it
will be built at a cost 23502 crore rupees.
They are Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors
(PHWRs)
which will use natural uranium as fuel and heavy water as both coolant and
moderator.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India
Limited (NPCIL) will build these reactors. This
is the first time Haryana will have a nuclear project.
In the second stage, the NPCIL will build two
more PHWRS of 700 MWe each at the Gorakhpur site of Haryana.
The nuclear plant will accelerate the pace of
development of the area and it would also generate more employment
opportunities.
The NPCIL is already building four PHWRS of
700 MWe each, two units each at Kakrapara
in Gujarat and Rawatbhatta in
Rajasthan. The units at Kakrapara are under advanced stage of construction
and they will attain criticality in 2016.
NPCIL is the sole body responsible for
constructing and operating India’s commercial nuclear power plants. The company
had 21 nuclear reactors in operation at
seven locations. Total installed capacity of nuclear reactors is 5780 MWe.
India’s
three-stage nuclear power programme
Programme was formulated by Dr. Homi Bhabha
in the 1950s. The objective of the plan is to secure the country’s long term
energy independence, through the use of uranium and thorium reserves found in
the monazite sands of coastal regions of
South India.
Programme has three stage vision :
The first stage consists of the pressurised
heavy water reactors (PHWR),
the second stage consists of fast breeder
reactors (FBR) and
the third stage consists of advanced heavy
water reactors (AHWR).