NSG membership push unwarranted: Srinivasan

Hyderabad

The AEC, a body under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), would have advised the government to desist from such a move had it been consulted, he said.

Srinivasan, a former Chairman of the AEC, which looks after atomic energy activities in the country, argued that NSG membership does not make a difference to India’s nuclear commerce as New Delhi has signed agreements with other countries for supply of reactors and uranium.

“Unnecessarily, India made a big hype about this admission into the NSG. It was completely unnecessary because the 2008 waiver was already enabling us to have nuclear commerce with nuclear advanced countries and we already have agreements with Russia, France and United States for reactor projects,” he said in an interview to PTI on Saturday.

India also has uranium buying agreement with multiple countries, including Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia, Srinivasan noted, adding it was an ‘unwarranted and  ill-advised initiative’ to seek entry into the group of nuclear-supplier countries set up in 1974. The Padma Bhushan awardee said failure to get in NSG would not have adverse impact on India’s nuclear programme as New Delhi has its own capability ‘for designing and building reactors and fuel manufacturing, reprocessing and so on’.