By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, April 22 (IANS) Global nuclear power major Russian state atomic corporation Rosatom is taking necessary measures and precautions to minimise the negative impact of COVID-19 crisis on its supply chain to fulfill its contractual commitments with India and others.
Rosatom is an integrated nuclear sector player operating atomic power plants and also supplies nuclear power plants globally.
“Rosatom is taking all necessary measures and precautions to minimize the negative impact of the epidemiological crisis on its supply chains and to ensure that our obligations to customers are fulfilled in full and on time stipulated by relevant contracts,” a senior official of Rosatom told IANS.
With a global order book position of about $130 billion in 2019, Rosatom is executing nuclear power projects in India, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt, Finland, Hungary and others as well as in Russia.
Rosatom has supplied two 1,000 MW plants for Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). The two plants at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu are generating power.
Rosatom has also started supplying equipments for two more such plants being built in Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP).
“At the moment, it is too early to speak about the consequences of the pandemic, however, Rosatom is developing different types of scenarios, depending if the epidemiological situation worsens or improves,” the official added.
The official said the Rosatom has a complex task – to preserve the health of its employees all around the world and at the same time to fulfil its obligations to its partners.
According to him, Rosatom is collecting all the information about the current epidemiological situation in the countries where it is present to respond fast.
Queried about the plans chalked out to speed up the deliveries once the lockdown or restrictions are lifted in different countries he said: “We cannot yet assess the consequences of all quarantine measures taken in all countries, as the restrictions are still in place.”
“We are estimating various options and scenarios for the development of events – now Rosatom is doing lots of work to assess different types of scenarios and measures with which these scenarios can be realized,” he added.
According to him, all possible actions to prevent the spread of the virus are being taken at the construction site in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu along with NPCIL.
According to him, a special control headquarters was created to implement such measures as distant work in a dedicated room with hand sanitising.
“Specialists visit the construction site only in case of urgent need and in accord with NPCIL. On entrance to the site the workers temperature levels are being measured and on entrance to every building everybody’s hands are sanitized,” he said.
–IANS
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