Address by Head of Indian Delegation (Dr. V.P. Raja)

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman for inviting me to say a few words. But for a very pressing engagement with the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, Dr Anil Kakodkar, would himself have been here on this august occasion. He has asked me to convey his good wishes for the success of all deliberations here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the people and Government of India and on behalf of our Chairman, it is my great pleasure and a privilege to accept this invitation for Participation in Negotiations and Partnership in ITER. As has already been remarked by others before, with our entry more than half of humanity has entered into a partnership to work towards the solution of one of the most pressing problems for mankind, viz. the energy problem. India has enormous energy needs. With an accelerating economy and growing expectations of our citizens for a better quality of life, energy has become a crucial commodity for us. Conventional sources of energy, like fossil fuels, cannot take us very far, both because of dwindling supplies and because of environmental constraints. We have great hopes in nuclear energy and have an ambitious nuclear fission energy program in which we are looking for significantly enhanced capacities in the coming decades. But our Government is also committed to a strong support for research on new energy sources. Fusion energy research is one such area and our Government has been strongly supporting it for the past couple of decades or more. The Government of India is thus fully committed to its obligations under the ITER partnership and also to a strong National program. Our scientists have already designed and fabricated two tokamak devices, ADITYA and the steady state superconducting tokamak SST 1. Many technologies of relevance to the forefront of fusion research have been developed by our scientists and engineers in collaboration with our industries. We thus bring to the table a combination of strong commitment from the Government and special scientific and technological skills, which are of relevance to ITER and to fusion research.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would be failing in my duties if I did not put on record India’s appreciation and gratitude to the ITER parties, who made special efforts to facilitate India’s entry into the ITER partnership. Some of you made special efforts in initiating a process of consultations among the parties for India’s entry. Others have made special efforts together with IT so that a significant and equitable package of allocations was made available to India. Yet others have made special efforts to see that even though we are the youngest ITER partners, we are made to feel welcome. On behalf of India I thank all of you for these considerations.

We now look forward to the task ahead: A successful conclusion of the negotiations, formation of the ILE and the technical task of actually starting construction of the ITER device. Our young scientists and engineers and our dynamic industries are waiting with great expectations for this unprecedented collaboration in human history, which is both a challenge and an opportunity!

I thank you very much, once again.