Five nuclear energy parks for India by 2032

KOLKATA (PTI): India would set up five energy parks by 2032 to rise the generation of nuclear energy.

"The selected sites for the energy parks are Haripur inWest Bengal, Mithi Virdi in Gujarat, Jaitapur inMaharashtra, Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh and Kudamkulam in Tamil Nadu," chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, Srikumar Banerjee said on Monday.

The country plans to have 35,000 MW of installed capacity by 2020 and 60,000 MW by 2032, Banerjee said at the 60th foundation day of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics here.

Out of this, 40,000 MW to 45,000 MW would come from energy parks and the balance from the other installations.

He said going by the present economics, nuclear power was more competitive than other sources of energy like thermal.

Banerjee said that India would be able to generate at most 10,000 MW of nuclear energy from its assured uranium reserves. Since India did not have enough and good quality uranium, the country was importing it from Russia and France.

The current generation level was around 4500 MW.