Minister ‘counsels’ N-plant sceptics

The junior minister for science and technology has advised the critics of the government’s initiative for building a nuclear power plant to ‘look forward keeping the past aside.’

“What you are talking is about the first generation technology, but now it’s time for third generation technologies,” Yeafesh Osman said on Friday advising them to dream about ‘future’ and be ‘updated’.

After a nuke-power deal with Russia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told journalists they would start building the first nuclear power plant by September-October this year.

Built with the help of Russian state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom, the Rooppur nuclear power plant in the country's northwest will have two reactors with each producing 1,000 megawatts.

The proposed plant has been seen as an imperative for power-starved Bangladesh, but some professionals have also been raising safety concerns.

The minister, speaking at a conference of the Society of Nuclear Medicine Bangladesh, said Bangladesh should have built a nuclear plant in 1964. “But we are unfortunate, we could not. When we are building it today, some professionals are trying to push us back.”

“This time it will be built, must,” he said in his usual poetic style.

He asked the nuclear scientists of Bangladesh to be ‘updated’ with the latest technologies and acknowledge the talent of young generation whom he referred to as the ‘future of Bangladesh’.

The nuclear scientists sought government support to facilitate their connecting with the advanced world.