Jaitapur nuke project is on

The Jaitapur nuclear plant will come up, and at the proposed location. This was revealed by Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan after his meeting with the PM and environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh. Chavan said, “The Centre is determined to implement the project in a time-bound manner.” But with the Japan crisis leading to fears, each Jaitapur reactor will have its own safety and operation system. Meanwhile, the Centre has decided to introduce a bill in the next session of Parliament to create an independent and autonomous nuclear regulatory body.

About 300 km from the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant, Indian scientists are all set to drill an 8-km hole in the earth’s crust for prediction of earthquakes. Announcing this, minister of state for earth sciences Ashwani Kumar on Tuesday, however, denied that the choice of location had anything to do either with the proposed plant or the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The study costing Rs 300 crore will be carried out in the quake-prone Koyna region in association with the International Continental Drilling Programme. “One of the reasons that make prediction of earthquakes difficult is that both the origin and the timing have to be calculated to perfection. By drilling the hole, scientists will be able to monitor disturbances in the subsoil and thus predict both,” a senior official of the ministry said. The entire project will take two-five years but the first findings will start to come in within eight months of commencement of work. The Koyna region, home to a large hydel project, is a highly active seismic zone and would provide scientists an opportunity to study earthquakes real time and also help in identifying its early signs. Provisions for the project will be made in the 12 th five year plan. Explaining the reasons for the choice of Koyna, scientists described the region as unique as very severe earthquakes continue to occur there four decades after the initial spurt in activity.