Kushner push for nuke project in India stalled

Sandeep Dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 19

India has gamely gone along with the US in highlighting Westinghouse’s long-stalled plans to build nuclear plants during Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale’s trip to Washington. But there is little hope of a breakthrough in the near future for the deal worth over $20 billion, sources said.

The renewed American thrust on its civil nuclear industry by legal fine-tuning and diplomatic press-ganging is a brainchild of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The idea is to beat back competition from Russian and Chinese companies that are supposedly besting the US rival Westinghouse in other countries.

This scenario is a reality in India. Russian company Atomstroyexport has two functioning plants, a third is in the final leg of completion and the Budget has made allocation for a fourth plant. In contrast, mere periodic consultations between Westinghouse and the Department of Atomic Energy have managed to keep alive the American project.

Sources pointed to circumstantial evidence that Kushner’s thrust is backed by Westinghouse, emerging from a bankruptcy that complicated plans for nuclear plants based on patented AP-1000 design to serve as a working display of their intention in other countries.

Kushner’s thrust, as evidenced from a US proposal to sideline the legally solid 123 Agreement and replace it with the more vacuous and flexible civil nuclear MoU, is mean to win a mega order from Saudi Arabia. But the focus is also on projects in a limbo such as the one granted to the US for six nuclear plants in India.

Sources said if the absence of a running Westinghouse plant based on the design offered to India is a problem, there are also persisting doubts in the US about the Indian Nuclear Liability Law despite modifications and Indian accession to the International Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage.