Chennai: Unit II of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project is in the advanced stage of commissioning and is likely to go critical by August, a top nuclear scientist said here on Saturday.
"Kudankulam (Unit II) as you know is a precise water reactor. And now they are again in the advanced stage of commissioning," Sekhar Basu, Director of Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) told reporters here.
Asked when it was expected to be commissioned, he said, "That also is (planned) somewhere in the year. It is becoming critical maybe by August, September".
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited had postponed putting the power unit II into commercial operation until July 2015. Before that, commissioning had been postponed thrice.
Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Ratan Kumar Sinha had told PTI last month that the process of commissioning Unit-II was in an "advanced stage" and soon "fuel" would be loaded into the reactor.
Moscow-based Rosatom, which is helping India build the Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu, has said there are plans to commission the second unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in 2015.
Rosatom had said that construction of the second power unit has already been completed and that its equipment was being adjusted.
