“Nuclear has potential and has opportunities for India. This government is considering all options… In nuclear, we are seized of the problem and we are already trying to see how we can address the nuclear liability restrictions,” Goyal said.
Goyal, who is the Minister of State for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy, was speaking at the India Economic Summit here.
In August, the government had said that it was addressing the concerns raised by domestic suppliers over certain provisions of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act, 2010 and was working out a scheme to obtain appropriate insurance cover from domestic insurers.
Sounding cautious, Goyal said that the United States and many European nations have discontinued setting up of nuclear plants.
“This government would like to be cautious that we are not being saddled with something only under the garb of clean energy or alternate energy; something which the West has discarded and is sought to be brought to India,” he said.
According to him, there is no estimate yet on the life-cycle costs of nuclear power right till the de-commissioning stage.
“I hear that US and Europe are also not developing new nuclear power plants. We are cautious about it as we don?t want to be saddled with an old asset in the garb of alternate energy,” he added.
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