The spending is justified considering nuclear power will help reduce India’s spending on oil and coal imports, . .Indian plans include the construction of as many as 14 Russian Reactors, partially financed by "soft loans" from Russia, and partially by funds from local sources. The Russian reactor projects are but a small part of the Indian nuclear plans which will eventually require vast financial resources for their completion.
Indian Nuclear plans are exceedingly ambitious and the Indians have started a huge infrastructure program. Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), is owned by the Indian Government, and already supplies 80% of the heavy equipment for India's national nuclear power program. BHEL plans to spend $7.5 billion in two years building plants to supply components for both local and foreign designed reactors to be built in India, In addition, BHEL plans a further joint venture with NPCIL intended to supply even more components to for reactor construction, and is involved in a further joint venture with NPCIL and an as of yet unnamed European partner to build generator turbines for new Indian Reactors. A further BHEL joint venture with Heavy Engineering Corp (HEC) will produce castings and forgings for nuclear power plants, BHEL is also engaged in talks with British Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd and Japan's Kobe Steel exploring the possibility of even more joint ventures for nuclear forgings. Still other joint ventures and agreement involving BHEL will be announced. All in all it appears that BHEL and NPCLI plan to invest $50 Billion during the next five years, to expand the Indian nuclear manufacturing base. This would be astonishing, but investment of this size are probably being matched by China.
Now contrast these and many other documented Indian developments with the following statement from nuclear critic Steve Thoma, and his associates Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt, and Doug Koplow,
In 2006 the chairman of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) told reporters that 62 reactors with a combined capacity of 40 GW would be operating by 2025.342 There is no evidence of how the country would enable an annual increase of 1,850 MW every year between 2008 and 2025. . . .In other words, "those poor darkie Indians don't have a clue about what they are doing with nuclear technology. They need all of the help they can get." This statement was commissioned by the then Green dominated German Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety. Who says that the spirit of Nazi racism is dead in Germany?
Considering its poor past industrial record, it remains to be seen whether the Indian nuclear sector will be up to its own expectations in the future. Foreign assistance could make a difference to some extent. . .

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