India is now in a position to manufacture atomic bombs and atomic weapons without depending on any outside help.
Dr H. J. Bhabha, head of the Atomic Energy Establishment, made this announcement today at a meeting of the Informal Consultative Committee of Parliament, it is learnt.
Dr Bhabha’s announcement came when some MPs at the meeting raised the question of making atomic weapons. Mr Nehru was presiding.
In reply to questions of MPs who evinced keen interest in the development of atomic energy, Dr Bhabha, it is stated, held that so far as the technical aspect of manufacturing atomic weapons was concerned, India was almost self-sufficient in the sense that it was keeping abreast of all the developments in this sphere in the US and the USSR.
Dr Bhabha is understood to have emphasized that we can now manufacture A-bombs and atomic weapons “if we mean to.” He, however, quoted from an earlier statement of the Prime Minister that India would use atomic energy only for peaceful and constructive purposes to underline the present policy of the Government not to manufacture A-bombs and atomic weapons.
Some technical questions such as quantities of uranium to be used in the manufacture of A-bombs. It is learnt, were discussed by the committee and references in this context were made to the nature of the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The consultative committee, it is understood, also discussed the original project of completing by the end of 1964-85 an atomic power station somewhere between Ahmedabad and Bombay of the capacity of 250 mw. (Megawatts) and the new proposal to make two reactor units of 150 mw. each at the same place in keeping with the latest developments.
The making of two such smaller units instead of one, it was pointed out, would not add much to the cost of the original project.
The question of erecting atomic power stations in such areas as Delhi, Madras and Rajasthan, where the cost of coal is high, for generating power, was also discussed by the committee.
