India yet to decide on Russia's EPR proposal

India is looking at an ambitious proposal by Russia for setting up a joint enrichment and reprocessing facility in their soil, which could help skirt the tough new NSG guidelines, but has not reached a conclusion yet.India will be looking at how the new concept will play out while noting that it will be part of continuing negotiations to expand its nuclear cooperation with Russia, pti reported quoting the sources as said. The government assessment was given against the backdrop of Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin's remarks that Moscow is awaiting India's response. The sources said India was looking into the proposal but has not reached any conclusion yet. The sources at the same time noted that India possessed the technology relating to the full nuclear fuel cycle. The assessment came ahead of the 12th annual Indo-Russian Summit in Moscow to be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Kremlin today. The proposal envisages a joint venture company that will be based in Russia to enrich and reprocess spent nuclear fuel collected from Indian nuclear plants for re-use. The proposal on joint facility if implemented will help India get past the new energy criteria which stated that enrichment and reprocessing technology transfer will be allowed only to countries that has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India is not a signatory to the controversial NPT. According to Russian side, the proposed facility will enable Moscow to comply with its obligations to India and at the same time not violate any international law, with regards the NPT. The sources said the option of Haripur in West Bengal being a site for a Russian nuclear plant has not been closed. Russia has been pressing for alternative sites in the wake of protests in the area. On Indo-Russian defence cooperation, the sources said problems persisted over supply of spare parts from Moscow and hoped that it would be sorted out. The sources however said it was not an India-specific problem. At the same time, they noted that it was a view of the armed forces that the supply of spare parts should not hinder its modernisation programme.