New Delhi puts off nuclear bill after opposition protests

[Neo]

New Delhi puts off nuclear bill after opposition protests

NEW DELHI (March 16 2010): India's government shelved for now a crucial nuclear energy bill after opposition protests on Monday, a move likely to delay the entry of US firms into India's $150 billion nuclear market. The decision is the latest in a series of setbacks for the Congress party-led coalition which, despite its parliamentary majority, has sometimes also given in to opposition pressure on moves entailing painful adjustments to free markets.

The government backed off from introducing in parliament the bill to limit nuclear firms' liability in the case of industrial accidents after it became clear the opposition would block it. While the government has a majority in the powerful lower house, it needs the support of the BJP to ratify the bill in the upper. The legislation has been cleared by the cabinet. Opposition parties say the bill favours private players as it seeks to put a maximum liability of about $450 million on the state-run reactor operator without placing any compensation burden on private suppliers and contractors.

Ratifying the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill is imperative for private US firms reluctant to do business in India without legislation that underwrites their compensation liability in the case of industrial accidents.

"The liability of the operator under the Price Anderson Act of the US is $12.5 billion which is 23 times higher than the liability fixed for an Indian operator," said Yashwant Sinha of main Hindu-nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Clearly, the life of an Indian is only worth a dime compared to the life of an American." The issue is sensitive in a country where a gas leak in a Union Carbide factory killed about 3,800 people in 1984, one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

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