The government has ensured safe passage for the civil liability for nuclear damage bill after sealing a deal with the BJP on Tuesday by agreeing to bump up the “no-fault’’ liability from Rs 500 crore to Rs 1,500 crore and a guarantee against private firms running nuclear power plants. The government-BJP talks were concluded at finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s office in Parliament and the government can now hope to pass the bill in this session itself as it has been keen that a liability law is in place ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in November.
The passage of the bill is crucial to the operationalization of the nuclear deal with the US as well as other countries since foreign suppliers were reluctant to do business in the absence of a liability law which would have insulated them from demands for compensation in the event of an accident. The compromise rules out private players like L&T and Tata with the potential to build nuclear plants from what promises to be a huge market, given the government’s plan to generate 30,000 mw from nuclear power by 2030.
The Left remains the only major objector with CPM, CPI and Forward Bloc MPs submitting dissent notes at a meeting of the standing committee examining the bill on Tuesday. The compromise with the BJP will save the government from having to stitch deals with smaller parties like the SP, BSP and the RJD which would have had a rider attached.
The Left parties had called for a single tier liability system with a cap of Rs 10,000 crore and a categoric mention that India would not become a member of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation. The first stage liability would be Rs 1,500 crore and subject to periodic review. The government has been reluctant to raise this cap but with the standing committee draft itself revising it to Rs 1,000 crore, it had to give in to the BJP demand.
The language of section 17 dealing with the “right to recourse’’ or the operator’s right to pursue suppliers for faults has been made tougher and will cover damages caused during transportation. The liability will be qualified in terms of initial fault at the time of supply or one that develops over time. The time limit for filing a compensation claim has been raised from 10 to 20 years in view of the submissions to the committee that the inter-generational effects of radiation leaks can sometimes take many years to manifest.
The liability has been made “absolute’’ and seeks to enable victims to claim compensation from operators without delays and there is no reference that indicates that India would become a member of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation as a consequent to the passage of the bill. Most of these changes had been considered by the standing committee on science and technology including raising the no-fault cap further. But a political agreement between the government and the BJP means near unanimity over the bill and allows the main Opposition to claims a slice of the credit for making the law more “foolproof ’’.
At the committee’s meeting on Tuesday, the testimony of several ministries that their views were not fully reflected in the initial draft were noted and a mention will be made in the panel’s report about the advisability to do so with regard to major legislation.
