PM bent on clearing nuclear liability bill this session

Prime minister Manmohan Singh has sent out strong signals that he cannot wait indefinitely for the passage of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill in Parliament. He is keen on seeing it through in the monsoon session; he is prepared to extend the session if the opposition gets in the way by disrupting House proceedings.

T Subiram Reddy, chairman of the standing committee on science and technology, is confident of presenting the bill by the end of the week and is busy evolving a consensus by incorporating suggestions from opponents. The committee is likely to hold its final meeting on the issue on Tuesday.

Reddy has made it clear that the amount of compensation cannot be enhanced to billions of dollars as is being demanded by the opposition. The supplier, operator and all concerned, however, will be made liable to stringent penalties.

The government, despite not having a clear majority in the Rajya Sabha and a wafer-thin majority in the Lok Sabha, is clear on trying its luck. The prime minister appears ready for the consequences of the move.

The Congress has the support of 285 members in the Lok Sabha, including 21 of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). It hopes to rope in the Samajwadi Party (SP) with 22 members, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which has four members, and eight other MPs. The SP leaders have conveyed that if the liability of the suppliers is also included and overall financial liability of the operator is enhanced, it would not have any problem with the bill.

In the Rajya Sabha, the Congress has 71 MPs of its own and 29 others belong to UPA allies. With the BSP, RJD, Lok Janshakti Party and independents chipping in, there should not be much of a problem. Yet, the government does not want a division in the house on this issue.

The prime minister has got it conveyed to the BJP, some of whose leaders are stoutly opposed to the bill, that the bill was first drafted in 2001 by their own government. When senior BJP leader LK Advani led a high-powered delegation of his party comprising Yashwant Sinha, Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley to a meeting with Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, they were politely shown the draft prepared by their own government.

Minister of state in the prime minister’s office Prithviraj Chavan said there were only four suppliers of nuclear reactors in the world and two of them are already functional in the country. The government, by bringing the first ever legislation in the country, would make them accountable in the event of an accident.