India on Tuesday indicated it may take some time before French companies can actually start nuclear trade to get a slice of its USD 100 billion nuclear pie.Shortly after a bilateral pact on nuclear cooperation was inked in presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar said the cost factor will determine whether India will go for Pressurised Water Reactors (PWR) or the EPR, which are third-generation PWRs, for its atomic power programme.Asked how soon can French nuclear companies expect to win contracts, Kakodkar said there were some parallel processes which needed to be followed like having additional protocols in India-specific IAEA safeguards.French nuclear giants like Areva, Alstorm and EDF appear keen to do business with India in this field.To a question, Kakodkar said civil nuclear cooperation can be carried out with other countries without having to amend the country’s Atomic Energy Act.The issue of fuel reprocessing and enrichment will be within the parameters of nuclear fuel cycle management envisaged under the agreement, he said, adding indigenous technologies were available for reprocessing spent fuel.Kakodkar was evasive when asked whether India and Russia would sign a nuclear pact on the lines of the Indo-French inter-governmental agreement during the planned visit of Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev to India towards the end of this year. “We cannot fix a time-line,” he said.
