NEW DELHI, October 19 (RIA Novosti) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday praised Russia for assisting New Delhi in nuclear energy and expressed hope that an accord on Moscow's further participation in India's Kudankulam nuclear power plant would be clinched in the near future.
"Russian and Indian companies are continuing negotiations on finalizing arrangements for Kudankulam units 3 and 4, and I am sure that these contracts would be finalized shortly," Singh told Russian journalists on the eve of his three-day visit to Russia, starting on Sunday. He will attend the 14th India-Russia Annual Summit and hold talks with President Vladimir Putin.
Singh said the first unit of the Russian-assisted Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, in southern India, should start providing electricity to the grid soon, while the second unit was in an advanced stage of construction.
India signed a contract to build the Kudankulam NPP with the USSR in 1988, but construction only started in 2002. In 2010, India and Russia agreed to build at least six power units. Work on the first two units was halted in September 2011 over protests by local residents, who demanded the joint project be scrapped, citing safety concerns arising after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear incident. The protesters blocked all roads to the plant and did not allow the workers to enter.The work resumed in March 2012. Indian authorities say that nuclear power is necessary to meet the country's growing energy needs.
India’s prime minister also said the hydrocarbon sector was a "priority area" of joint cooperation: "We are considering the possibilities of expanding our cooperation in the Russian oil and gas sector and are examining the feasibility of a proposal for direct surface transportation of hydrocarbons from Russia to India."
Singh said New Delhi considers the development of the fifth-generation fighter jet and the multi-purpose transport aircraft as two flagship projects in the India-Russia military and technical cooperation.
He said these projects “symbolize the transformation of our defense cooperation from a “buyer-seller” relationship of the past to a format that now involves joint design, development and production of advanced defense production."
Sunday's visit comes against the backdrop of a slump in Russia’s traditionally strong position on the Indian arms market in the face of fierce competition from US and European competitors and after failure by Moscow to fulfill several contracts.
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