Civil nuclear cooperation likely to be high on Modi-Biden bilateral meet agenda

The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden in New Delhi on Friday may add momentum to civil nuclear cooperation between India and the United States.

Biden will travel to New Delhi on Thursday to attend the 18th G20 summit in the national capital on Saturday and Sunday. He will have a bilateral meeting with Modi on Friday. The two sides are likely to discuss ways to move ahead on what was agreed upon during the prime minister’s state visit to Washington and his meetings with the US president at the White House on June 22 and 23.

India-US civil nuclear cooperation is likely to be high on the agenda of the Modi-Biden bilateral meeting in New Delhi. A source in New Delhi told DH that the meeting might add momentum to negotiations between the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and US-based Westinghouse Electric Company (WEC) for the construction of six nuclear reactors – each with 1100 MWe generation capacity – at Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh. The US Department of Energy and India's Department of Atomic Energy have also been in touch to assist the WEC develop a techno-commercial offer for the nuclear project.

The landmark India-US nuclear deal was signed in October 2008. But the discussion with the WEC to build an atomic power plant in India could not make progress for various reasons, including the hurdles posed by India's Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, shifting the proposed project site from Gujarat to Andhra Pradesh and the financial crisis that hit the US company in 2017.

Modi and Biden will also discuss bilateral cooperation in developing next-generation small modular reactor technologies collaboratively for domestic markets, as well as for export. The issue was briefly touched upon when they had met in the White House on June 22.