Wednesday, March 8 2006 18:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The CPI(M) today(Mar 8,2006) asked the Government to explain whether the decisions to close down the CIRUS nuclear reactor by 2010 and shift Apsara from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for IAEA inspection were made 'independently'.

"CIRUS stopped functioning in 1997 and then it was refurbished and revived in 2004 with a 15-year lifeline. Now, Government has announced it will be closed in 2010, nine years ahead of schedule. We want to know if this was an independent decision or was it under pressure," party leaders Nilotpal Basu and Rupchand Pal told reporters here.

Maintaining that the Apsara reactor was also to be shifted out of BARC for IAEA inspection, they said the Canadians had also wanted closure of CIRUS sometime ago and sought to know whether the government 'took independent decisions' on these matters.

Basu and Pal also wanted to know what would happen to the used nuclear fuel as it would not be re-used or re-processed and its storage was 'a prohibitively costly affair'.

It was also not clear what agreement would be signed by India with IAEA and whether it would be 'concomitant upon the passage of US legislation', they said and questioned how the 'unique' India-specific safeguards would come about.

"All these are very serious grey areas", they said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had yesterday announced thedecision to shut down the 50-year-old CIRUS reactor in fouryears and shift the Apsara reactor from its present location in BARC.