Excelsior Correspondent
MUMBAI, Sept 21: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that one of the major achievements of the Modi Government is that it brought India’s nuclear programme to North India, so that it no longer remained confined mostly to the southern and western parts of the country, particularly the States like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Briefing the media about the review meeting convened by him with senior scientists and officials in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Dr Jitendra Singh said, soon after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, the work was started on the first- ever Nuclear Plant in North India at a town called Gorakhpur in Haryana, which is just over 100 kms away from the national capital of New Delhi. It is likely to become functional in the next two to three years, he added.
Expressing satisfaction at the growth of the Atomic energy programme in the last five years, Dr Jitendra Singh said, there is a plan to double the output of Atomic energy generation in the next few years and the credit goes to Prime Minister Modi for having approved a fixed budget for new installations over the next ten years. At the same time, meanwhile, he said, exploration work will be undertaken to work out the feasibility of new power plants in other locations including that in the North East.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, in the years to come, as the energy requirements of India grow at a fast track, atomic/nuclear energy will be a major source of our energy requirements and at the same time, it would also be a clean and cost-effective source. This will truly be a vindication of the declaration made by the founding father Dr Homi Bhabha over 60 years ago, who had said that India’s nuclear programme will be devoted to peaceful purposes, even though at that time, many people would have been skeptic about what he said.
Senior nuclear scientists led by Dr S K Sharma, Chairman, Nuclear Energy Power Limited were present at the meeting.
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