An anti-nuclear activist says safety measures at nuclear power plants in India are "deplorable and frightening."
Sanghamitra Desai Gadekar addressed an April 11 seminar organized as part of an anti-nuclear cycle rally in Panaji, the capital of western Goa state.
The rally through five western coastal states was to create awareness among people about the perils of nuclear plants in the country.
Gadekar highlighted the case of a nuclear plant in Rawatbhata, northwestern Rajasthan state, to show how such plants endanger human life.
She said among some 3,000 people living in the vicinity of Rawatbhata plant, the frequency of "congenital deformities were very high."
Gadekar conducted a house-to-house survey of villages near the plant and supported her statements with a slide show.
The slides showed children and grown people suffering from deformities, mental retardation, tumors and a variety of skin diseases.
More than 40 children were disfigured with stubs instead of feet and hands. One child had no ear or even an aural orifice.
"Infant mortality and cases of polio were abnormally high. Even the animals in the locality were affected," she told the seminar showing a slide of a three-legged goat.
Authorities say an infected pond in the area is the cause of all the medical problems of the villagers, she said.
"But there is no hospital and people continue to suffer from a variety of unnatural afflictions," she said.
Seminar speakers said information on the safety of nuclear power plants is suppressed, and they stressed the need for cost analyses.
"Nuclear power projects in India have consumed more energy than they have produced till today," Professor Gurunandan Bhat of the Goa University told the seminar.
The Indian government budgeted US$20 million for nuclear research and development. Only a tenth of that amount is slated for health and social welfare research.
The seminar also pointed out that the nuclear programs in India not only lacked safety, but also "trampled on the civil rights of the casual laborers" employed there.
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