US NGOs don't appreciate energy needs of India: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the protests against the Kudankulam nuclear plant might be fuelled by NGOs based in the US. [caption id=“attachment_223898” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Union Minister V Narayanasamy (right) seen with the PM in this photo had earlier said that the protestors were receiving money from abroad. Reuters”]  [/caption] “The atomic energy programme has gone into difficulties because these NGOs, mostly I think based in the United States, don’t appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply,” PM Manmohan Singh told the magazine Science when asked about the Kudankulam protests. The Prime Minister was also asked if nuclear energy still had a role to play in India after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan. “Yes, where India is concerned, yes. The thinking segment of our population certainly is supportive of nuclear energy,” he said. However, an organiser of the protests near the Kudankulam plant said there was absolutely no truth in the PM’s statements. “It is absolutely a lie that we have been receiving money from US and Scandinavian countries,” SP Udayakumar of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) told CNN- IBN. We have been carrying on the agitation for the last seven months and the PM should understand the sentiment of the people, he said. Union Minister V. Narayanasamy had earlier alleged that a special Home Ministry team found that some organisations involved in the protests against the Kudankulam had received funds to the tune of over Rs. 55 crore. An expert panel constituted by the Jayalalithaa government to study the safety of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant had gived it a clean chit and was likely to render a body blow to the protests, _Firstpost_ had said. The Kudankulam nuclear power plant is being completed in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

with inputs from PTI