New Delhi: In yet another breakthrough in the India-US Nuclear deal, India has agreed that it will share data on nuclear material and equipment in order to secure the US agreement to waive its “tracking requirements” on that material.
This collated data will be shared during annual consultations between a US-Indian group which will be specially set up to kick start the administrative arrangements stalling the nuclear deal.
Reportedly, Indian officials maintained that the data sharing agreement will be same as had been extended to other countries.
According to The Hindu report, a senior official of the MEA on Disarmament and International Security Affairs Amandeep Singh Gill has stated soon after the Modi-Obama summit in Delhi that the same template that was used for India-Canada deal will be shared with US also. He said, “We have an administrative arrangement with Canada and that has been the template for finalizing our administrative arrangement with the U.S.”
According to this agreement with Canada that was finalized in April 2013 and is still not made public, it allows only for IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards while sharing data based on aggregates from the UN agency.
However, as quoted by US Ambassador Richard Verma in an interview, according to the US law there are requirements to track materials. He said that it is for the first time that there had been a commitment from the Indian government to come up with data and if, now, India departs from its previous stand that data could be provided to only inspectors of UN agency IAEA, it could raise several questions for the NDA government.
The report further denies that President Obama had issued any “executive waiver” to bypass the requirement to monitor the use of nuclear material in India.
Indian officials of the nuclear contact group are now working on producing the memorandum for American contact group. This will enclose the Indian government's explanation on the liability law and some other parts of negotiation.
Once this memorandum will get cleared, the administrative arrangements between the two governments will be signed.
The Indian government has yet not released details of the administrative arrangements agreed to with the U.S., nor of the “insurance pool” and memorandum on liability that secured the arrangements.
It is being speculated that clarity on same will be demanded in the budget session which is about to start in the last week of February.
