He said the safety system that had been built into the Kudankulam reactor was very advanced.
There were 16 such reactors in operation in Russia and nine in operation outside Russia, he said.
“This is a kind of reactor that has very advanced security features,” he said.
Dr. Chidambaram said the human development index depended very strongly on per capita electricity consumption. If India had to become a developed country, two things needed to be done, he said.
One was to become nearly 100 per cent literate without gender discrimination, and the other was that the per capita electricity consumption should go up six to eight times.
There was not enough fossil fuel in the world to achieve such a high power consumption, he said.
All other sources of energy were important.
“We must use hydel power to the maximum and must go for renewable energy. After having done all that, nuclear becomes inevitable. China is extremely fast with its nuclear programmes.”
He said India and China were the only two countries in the world with very high energy demand.
India was one of the few countries in the world that had comprehensive capabilities in the field. “We are a developed country in the nuclear sector,” Dr. Chidambaram said.
Earalier, during the official visit to Russia last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cleared the doubts over operationalisation of the Russian-aided Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, saying he will convince those opposing the project and get the first 1,000 MW unit running in "a couple of weeks".
"I am confident that in a couple of weeks we should be able to go ahead in operationalising Kudankulam-I and, thereafter, in a period of six months, the Kudankulam-II," he said at a joint press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after their three-hour-long bilateral meeting, first a two-hour one-on-one and later the hour-long delegation-level talks.
"Kudankulam I and II are at an advanced stage and they are very close to being operationalised," he added. Protests by locals at the site have halted all operations of the plant.
However, the two sides failed to clinch the much-awaited deal on units III and IV of the plant that wil use the Russian VVER-1000 Pressurised Water Reactors, though they agreed on the protocol for the Russian state credit for two future units as envisaged in their 2008 inter-governmental agreement and looked forward to moving ahead in their bilateral nuclear energy roadmap signed in 2010.
On units III and IV, the two nations have a difference of opinion on the recently-notified Indian nuclear liability rules and laws, with Moscow expressing its dismay over New Delhi's insistence on making them applicable to the additional Kudankulam units.
The liability rules are not applicable to units I and II as these were signed in late 1980s and in mid-1990s, much before India enacted laws to fix responsibility on nuclear technology firms and supplies for accidents.
