Nuclear power in India |ForumIAS

Context:

India has agreements with Westinghouse and Areva to build power plants in India.
Recently, both Westinghouse and Areva have gone bankrupt.
The Critics of these deals had pointed out that India’s agreements with Areva and Westinghouse were fiscally irresponsible.
Had these projects been implemented, Indian taxpayers would be holding billions of dollars of debt and incomplete projects.
The issue has also put the government’s recent decision to approve construction of ten 700 MW PHWRs under scrutiny.

India’s Agreements with Westinghouse and Areva

Areva had promised to build the world’s largest nuclear complex at Jaitapur (Maharashtra).
In June 2016, Indian Prime Minister along with erstwhile U.S. President Barrack Obama had announced that Westinghouse would build 6 reactors at Kovada (Andhra Pradesh).

What has happened to Westinghouse and Areva?

In March, Westinghouse, the largest builder of nuclear power plants declared bankruptcy.
This led to a major financial crisis for its parent company Toshiba.
The French Nuclear supplier, Areva too went bankrupt few months back.
It is at present in the midst of a restructuring that will cost French taxpayers about €10 billion.

Nuclear power in India

The first nuclear power plant in the country, comprising two nuclear reactor units, was set up at Tarapur, Maharashtra on turnkey basis by GE, USA The units became operational in October 1969.
Work on the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) of the first stage began with the construction of RAPS-1&2 at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan.
Commencing from 1983 and over a span of two and a half decades, India built 16 nuclear power units using its own technology, materials, and equipment.
These reactors use natural uranium as fuel.

Current Status

As of 2016, India has 22 nuclear reactors in operation in 8 nuclear power plants.
The Union Cabinet cleared the building of 10 new nuclear power plants in May, 2017.
The new reactors would be in addition to the ones that are expected to come on stream by 2021-22, and are expected to add 6700 MW in addition to the current capacity of 6780 MW from 22 reactors.

How cheap are these actually?