As a part of AERB silver Jubilee Year celebrations, OPSD in coordination with SRI, Kalpakkam had organized a two-day "Discussion Meet on Emergency Exercises at NPP Sites- Site and Off site: Challenges and Constraints" at SRI Guest House during June 12-13,2008. Around 35 delegates and invitees participated in the Discussion Meet. Chairman, AERB had sent a message wishing the Meet, which was being organized in the Silver Jubilee year of AERB , a resounding success.

Dr.V.M.Pingale, I.A.S

The Meet was inaugurated by Additional Collector Kanchipuram District Dr.V.M.Pingale I.A.S, and presided over by Vice Chairman AERB Shri. S.K.Chande.

Shri. S.K.Chande

Shri. S.E.Kannan, Director, SRI, Kalpakkam welcomed the Chief Guest, Invitees and other Delegates. In his inaugural address, the Additional Collector stressed the importance of district administration and complimented their effectiveness in tackling emergency situations like cyclone, floods and the recent tsunami that hit coastal areas of Tamil nadu. He wanted that DAE/NPCIL should bring to the notice of the district administration about the problems related to radiation monitoring in off site areas and difficulties related to accessing the affected villages etc.

Shri. S.E.Kannan

Shri. G.Nageswararao, Director(O), NPCIL spoke on the importance of this meet and touched upon the concerns of late on emergency situations arising out of external threat and other malicious acts.

Shri. R.Venkataraman, Director, OPSD/AERB, stressed the importance of meet of this kind, called upon an effective emergency preparedness by the NPCIL in view of the apprehension of public because of the accidents at Chernobyl and Three mile island reactors. He also outlined the scope and theme of the meet.

Shri. G.Nageswararao

Shri. R.Venkataraman

Shri.S.K.Chande,Vice chairman, AERB gave his presidential address. The topic was titled, "Emergency Preparedness: Status and Future Course". The focus of his talk was about the role of AERB relevant to emergency, its present status and aspects for improvement. He cited several AERB codes and guides and also recent IAEA publications on emergency management related issues. He brought out the some areas of challenges and deficiencies that need attention by NPCIL/ Govt. agencies. He advocated that Safety guides and emergency plans need revision periodically in view of the Current international safety standards on the subject, lessons learned from emergencies which had occurred elsewhere, Other relevant information / documentation and analyses available internationally, and continuous evaluation of the guides and plans in vogue.

Shri.R.Venkataraman

Shri. V.Mohan, OPSD/AERB proposed vote of thanks and the first part of the inaugural session was over. After hi tea, the inaugural session continued with two key note addresses. The first key note address was made shri. G.Nageswarrao, Dir(O), NPCIL and the second was by shri.R.Venkataraman, Director, OPSD.

The objective of the address of Dir (O), NPCIL was to identify problem areas / non uniformities in procedures / practices and to identify & implement measures to harmonize procedures / practices. He brought out some shortfalls and deficiencies at some sites during emergency exercises and indicated what plans the head quarter had to address them. His particular concern was a large number of stipulated site and off site emergency exercises conducted by RAPS site due to the existence of many NPP units and also heavy water plant. He suggested that the present frequency of site and off site exercises need revision. Other important suggestion was that, in multi unit sites, common facilities may be attached with a particular twin unit station (preferably in close proximity) for participating in the plant emergency exercise. This is to avoid the repetitive response from common facilities during every plant emergency exercise conducted by each nuclear facility of that site.

Director, OPSD in his key note address presented a broad over view on the Emergency Management by NPPs touching upon the design aspects, planning, and response and feed back etc He also commented upon the present status of the emergency preparedness by NPPs based on the response to the questionnaire sent to the NPP units by OPSD. A brief deliberation on the intervention levels and derived intervention levels, challenges on emergency preparedness, especially by new build projects covered other areas of his talk.

Next, there were a series of presentations from NPP units. Barring the RAPS site, Station Directors of various NPP units made their presentations on challenges and constraints during emergency exercises. Shri. U.S.Khare, AD (O), NPCIL made the presentation on behalf of RAPS site. All the presentations have been compiled in advance and given to the delegates/invitees as proceedings of the Meet.

There was one presentation by Dr. Indira, Head, Radiological Safety Division, IGCAR on the real time Decision Support System (DSS) developed at RSD for radiological emergency which was demonstrated for the first time during the off-site emergency exercise on August 24, 2007. This Decision Support System (GIS-DSS) is for geo-spatial analysis of radioactivity spread in the event of an inadvertent air borne release at Kalpakkam. The DSS has three options namely to show the dose projection assuming an emergency under LOCA in MAPS, dose projection under one unit release of activity and dose projection for known release rate that can be entered by any client on his machine.

One presentation was made by Shri. S.K.Pawar, Station HP, TAPS 3&4 about the training modules of IAEA /RCA Field Trials of Emergency Response Capacity conducted in Daejeon, Republic of Korea during 13-17 March 2006.

One brief presentation titled," Actions at NPCIL Head quarters on Emergency Preparedness in NPPs" made by shri. B.Ramamirtham, ACE, NPCIL. brought out the proposal that the conduct of all the emergency preparedness exercises including communication exercises in all NPP will be reviewed by the Emergency Response Cell constituted in NPCIL HQ.

The last two talks of the session were made by Shri. K.Muralidhar, Secretary, AEC and Shri. V.P.Raja, Principal Advisor and Chairman CMG, DAE.

In his talk, shri. Muralidhar presented the International experience in the area of emergency preparedness. He made out several points on the need of conducting the off site emergency and site emergency exercises at stipulated frequencies in a more professional manner. He suggested that the response of different agencies of the district administration could be checked in modules instead of all at a time. This could be beneficial to the concerned agencies without jeopardizing the overall network of administration. He was of the strong view that, during off site emergencies, the role of site authorities is confined only to radiological monitoring, dose measurement and prompt communication of these parameters to the district agencies who are supposed to take care of off site emergency management.

In his extempore exposition, shri V.P.Raja presented several anecdotes to impress upon the audience that emergency exercises are not meant to be symbolic but to be taken seriously in view of the public perception on nuclear energy. ' The more one sweats during peace the less he bleeds during the war' was the statement given in his talk to sensitize the resource agencies that should put more time and effort during normal times to perfect their emergency preparedness plans and strategies so that in a real time emergency, situations could be handled effectively without confusion or much economic penalty. He suggested that locally strong NGOs like milk cooperatives could be involved in off site emergency assistance and management.

In the feed back session, following invitees gave their views/comments on the topic of Meet:

• Dr. S.M.Lee, Ex Dir, SHINE Group IGCAR, Chairman PDSC KGS 3,4, RAPP 5&6.
• Dr S.K.Gupta, Director, SADD, AERB,
• Dr Om Pal Singh, Director, I&TSD, AERB.

In the end, Director, OPSD summed up the highlights of the meet. He also thanked all the presenters and participants who came to attend the Meet.

The Discussion Meet was highly beneficial to the target audience. Vice Chairman, AERB while thanking the participants, complimented that this Discussion Meet conducted in the AERB Silver Jubilee year which provided the forum for all the Station Directors and Key officials of AERB, CMG, NPCIL to participate and make their presentation on this vital topic was one of the most successful.