Article Posted on : - Apr 24, 2009

Kudankulam: building a nuclear power plant in India. A File Photo

NEW DELHI, (BNS): India will build a third nuclear power plant in collaboration with Russia in the southern city of Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu towards the end of this year, according to NPCIL.

"We expect to start construction on Kudankulam III by end of this year or early 2010," Sudhinder Thakur, Executive Director (Corporate Planning), Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) told reporters here Thursday.

The third unit at Kundakulam would be of higher 1,200 MW capacity in comparison with 1,000 MW of I &II unit of nuclear reactor, he said.

India and Russia will develop four more reactors jointly. Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar signed the agreement to build the reactors in a recent visit to Russia.

Thakur said India will place units five and six of the Rawatbhata nuclear power plant under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards as per the agreement reached at with the global nuclear watchdog last year.

NPCIL is planning to develop a new design of VVER-type reactors of 1,200 MW capacity, said officers involved with the Kundankulam project.

India has inked the agreement with the erstwhile USSR to build nuclear reactors at Kudankulam in 1988, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.