India on Monday resumed another round of talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to negotiate the India-specific safeguards agreement, which is crucial for the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
This round of negotiations is expected to complete the draft of the "agreed text" of the crucial new template specific to India and the meeting is expected to go on till Friday, an IAEA official told PTI.
The Indian delegation is headed by top Department of Atomic Energy official Dr Ravi B Grover.
Sources said Indian negotiators and IAEA are also keeping the agency's board of governors updated on the progress of the consultations so that it would be easier when it officially comes for disussion during the board meeting on March 3.
Although the next week's board meet will mostly concentrate on the issues of Iran, sources said India may or may not come up for the official discussion.
India and IAEA had held four rounds of talks in Vienna since November 2007, apart from several informal consultations to work out a new template on safeguards specifically for India, a key requirement before the agreement comes into force.
Pressing India to speed up implementaion of the nuclear agreement, the US had recently said the negotiations with IAEA and Nuclear Suppliers' Group should be wound up by May, failing which New Delhi will not get a similar deal.
Unfazed by the US position, India said it was a complex issue and the negotiations would take some time to conclude.
"We have to get this done at the earliest but it has to be correctly done and it has to meet all the requirements and so it's a long technical process. There are several steps involved. We have to move step by step," Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar had said.
If the "agreed text" on India-specific safeguards is not ready by this week, India may have to wait for the next board meeting scheduled in June, which means it would miss the May deadline set by the US.
According to M R Srinivasan, member of AEC, the India-specific agreement is special. Once the draft is ready, it would come to the commission for examination and then go to the United Progressive Alliance-Left political committee for approval.
New Delhi is working on a new template which would be more of facility-specific safeguards and take into consideration Indian interest on uninterrupted fuel supply and stockpiling of fuel as outlined in the bilateral 123 agreement from which the deal springs.
After the agreed text is ready, the next step was to get waiver from the NSG to allow India to participate in global nuclear commerce.
India has sought "clean and unconditional" waiver from the 45-member group that controls the global nuclear trade.
The next NSG plenary meeting is scheduled for May, but the group could meet in a special session to consider the Indian exemption issue before that, the sources said.
NSG had considered the draft US-India agreement (123 agreement) for civil nuclear cooperation, which was presented to the group by the US in September 2007 and January 2008.
Once the IAEA agreed text and the draft on waiver for India by NSG are ready, they have to be approved by the US Congress.