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India’s Nuclear Power Journey
A conversation with M R Srinivasan
Speakers
Nuclear energy became the promise and premise of power in the short period between the use of atomic weapons at the end of World War II in 1945 and Indian independence which followed shortly thereafter in 1947. Few could have expected a newly independent country to lay the foundations of a credible nuclear energy programme within a decade, and India embarked on precisely such a journey, in fact, a year before formal independence from Imperial rule with the establishment, in 1946, of a committee for research into atomic energy under Bhabha.
Apsara, India’s first research reactor, went critical in 1956 and today, there is a network of power generating reactors across the country. The programme has had an interesting domestic history as well as international dimensions, including that much discussed Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Malur Ramaswamy Srinivasan, former head of Power Projects Engineering Division, Founder Chairman, Nuclear Power Corporation as well as former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, has been intimately involved in this story from the outset, in the planning and execution of the majority of functioning reactors today.
We will explore the intricacies of this history with Dr. M R Srinivasan who will be in conversation with Jahnavi Phalkey, Founding Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru and author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth-Century India.
Speakers
M R Srinivasan
Dr. M R Srinivasan, recipient of the Padma Vibhushan award for his immense contributions to nuclear science and technology, was born in 1930 in Bangalore. He retired as Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy in 1990 as one of the towering personalities who ably guided the Indian Nuclear Programme. He played a crucial role during the three years of the Indo-US nuclear deal, a politically and technically exciting time, but also a tense period. He has served as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) from 1984-1990 and from 2004 onwards to date.
Dr. Srinivasan completed his Mechanical Engineering from UVCE Bangalore in the year 1950, did his Master’s in Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer and Applied Mathematics, his Post Graduation in Gas Turbines and his Doctorate from McGill University, Canada. He had started working at Ruston & Hornsby in the UK, when he was selected by Dr. Homi J Bhabha, founder of Atomic Energy in India and Chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
Dr. Srinivasan joined the DAE as Senior Research Officer in September 1955. He was deputed to the UK Atomic Energy Authority for an international course in reactor technology at Harwell. Thereafter, his first assignment with DAE was to work with the group responsible for the construction of the first research reactor of the Swimming Pool Type – later named Apsara. In 1959, a project group was constituted for setting up our first nuclear power plant with Dr. M R Srinivasan as Principal Project Engineer of a boiling water reactor of US design at Tarapore.
In early 1967, he was appointed as the Chief Construction Engineer of the Madras Atomic Power Project. It was the first indigenously designed Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor based on CANDU technology. The construction work at the power station involved many new and challenging techniques in civil engineering. In 1973, he was appointed as the Deputy Director, Power Projects Engineering Division (PPED) and made the Director, PPED in 1974. He was also made the Chairman of the Nuclear Power Board, DAE in 1984.
Dr. M R Srinivasan served as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1987 until his retirement in February 1990. He hastened the process of setting up the Nuclear Power Corporation to give momentum to the first stage of the Indian Nuclear Power Program, which was on course to achieving maturity. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India was created in September 1987, with Dr. Srinivasan as Founder-Chairman. He can claim to have had a highly satisfying and record-breaking career of planning and executing eighteen nuclear reactors in all. In 1984, he was awarded the Padma Shri, the Padhma Bhushan in 1990 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015.
He served as an advisor on energy, climate change and environment to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1990 to 1992. He was appointed member of the Planning Commission from 1996 to 1998. He was Founder Member of the World Association of Nuclear Operators in 1987. He headed an Expert Committee on the Kudankulam power plant of the Government of Tamil Nadu to allay public concerns, following which it has been successfully in operation. He was a member of the National Security Advisory Board from 2002 to 2004 and again from 2006 to 2008.
He is a recipient of the first Homi Bhabha Gold Medal from the Indian Science Congress and of the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award. He is the author of the book From Fission to Fusion: The Story of India’s Atomic Energy Programme (Viking Penguin, 2003). Dr. M R Srinivasan has also written extensively in the print media (including an Op-Ed column in The Hindu newspaper) on the significance of the development of nuclear energy for India’s energy mix, and he has appeared regularly on television to engage on nuclear issues and nuclear safety. Dr. Srinivasan, who is now into his nineties, continues to lead a very active life and contributes to society in his own ways.
Jahnavi Phalkey
Jahnavi Phalkey is the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru.
Formerly based at King’s College London, Jahnavi was Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin). She was also external curator to the Science Museum, London, and has been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. She is the author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth-Century India and has co-edited Science of Giants: China and India in the Twentieth Century.
Jahnavi read civics and politics at the University of Bombay and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She holds a doctoral degree in the history of science and technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
