N-deal: 'Kakodkar is the gorilla in the room'

Dubbing Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar as "the 600-pound gorilla in the room" in the matter of stalled negotiations over the 123 Agreement, senior members of the US Chamber of Commerce's Coalition for Partnership with India and the US-India Business Council have invited him over to Washington so he can better explain to senior US lawmakers India's concerns over the reprocessing of fuel.

These groups are in the forefront of the American  business and industry in pushing for the Indo-United States nuclear deal and lobbying in Congress.

While India has been demanding that the reprocessing fuel provision in the agreement be done away with, one member, who has held long meetings with Kakodkar, said the provision is not one that US Congress would be willing to do away with because "there is deep scepticism on Capitol Hill that if this is done, it would allow India to take advantage of the nuclear fuel it would obtain from the US to build up its strategic resources (read nuclear weapons arsenal)."

The member, who did not want to be identified, spoke to rediff.com on background.

"On the other hand," the member added, "if you listen to Kakodkar, he couldn't be more reasonable when he says India needs cheap nuclear power because its coal reserves are going to run out in 50 years or less and that India doesn't have substantial hydrocarbons to date."

Among the other options, while solar power was a good solution, it provides only about 10 percent of the required energy; bio-fuels like ethanol take up land and water, which India doesn't have.

According to this member, Kakodkar made the point that while "India potentially has only up to 8 percent of its power from nuclear energy," France's example showed that you can go up to 75 percent if you have the will."

"But there is no question that if you expect that you are going to have this surge in indigenous Indian nuclear plants, that there are going to require cheap fuel — and that goes to the heart of reprocessing, and it has nothing to do with building up a strategic arsenal and that's what he [Kakodkar] was telling us — that India has plenty enough fuel and material right now if they wanted to go on building up a bigger nuclear arsenal."

According to the member, "The issue in India is not a nuclear arsenal — you have plenty of nuclear bombs — but what you don't have in India is enough power."

Which, he said, was why his group had invited Kakodkar to make his case in Washington, DC.

"(But) It's a very sensitive moment for him and all eyes are on him and we respect this desire to keep some independence from the whole matter. But on the other hand, instead of him being the 600-pound gorilla as he's perceived here, he's such a nice, avuncular grandfather who we believe could sit with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers who are full of all sorts of speculation and he could calm them down."

According to this influential member of the Coalition who works closely with Under Secretary R Nicholas Burns and Ron Somers of the US-India Business Council, "None of the lobbyists or the hired hands can do that — I don't think Nick Burns can do that, Ron Somers can't do that — there's really nobody who isn't sort of tainted with looking like they represent some sort of cause."

"I am not saying that Kakodkar isn't sort of tainted himself. Obviously, he's partisan and has to look after the interests of the scientific establishment, but at the end of the day he makes a lot of sense — that India needs cheap nuclear fuel that they can reprocess and that they can therefore make nuclear power competitive or more than competitive with all the other sources of energy. And, he has the gravitas to make a convincing case."