Story of kudam kulam protest
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The nuclear power plant has had a chequered history spanning nearly three decades.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa dedicated the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant to the entire nation in a video conferencing event, 28 years after it was originally proposed. Between then and now, the project has had a chequered history, with numerous delays and protests impeding its progress.
When then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Kudankulam nuclear agreement in 1988, it marked the beginning of a promise of nuclear-powered energy self-sufficiency for the country. The 1988 agreement was initially for the setting up of two nuclear reactors in Tirunelveli.
However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself soon after the agreement was signed placed a stumbling block before it, and the project was revived only after a decade. In 2000, construction work for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) began in Tamil Nadu under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
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Though public memory of the 2011-12 protests against the power plant are fresher, in 1990, soon after the project was announced, the first protest against it was held by nearby residents, opposing the diversion of water for the reactors from the Pechiparai dam in Kanyakumari district. The fishing community too had apprehensions regarding threat to their livelihood from the project.
Also read: >Nuclear power is our gateway to a prosperous future by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
In 2004, a port was constructed for transporting raw materials to the plant. Four years later, in 2008, KKNPP decided to set up four more reactors at the plant. The first nuclear power unit was scheduled to start in 2009. It began operations in 2011.
In mid-March 2011, right when India began testing equipments at the first nuclear power unit, the Fukushima Daichii nuclear disaster unfolded in Japan. Even as work on the first unit was underway, protests against it started once again. The Fukushima disaster triggered a series of concerns surrounding the safety of the Kudankulam plant. The protestors, led by S. P. Udayakumar and his People's Movement against Nuclear Energy, were charged with sedition and >over 1,800 protesters were arrested .
The plant authorities and the government, and its Russian partners have >addressed all associated concerns from time to time. In 2012, project officials allayed local residents