NEW DELHI: India is playing a substantive role in building a nuclear power plant on foreign soil for the first time ever with the proposed supply of equipment and material for the power station being built by Bangladesh with Russian assistance.At the recent 61st general conference of the global nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna, top Indian officials announced Indian firms are working with Russian and Bangladeshi partners on establishing Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh. India will supply and manufacture equipment, material for the plant near Dhaka, said persons familiar with the issue.Besides Bangladeshi nuclear scientists are undergoing training at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, which was also built with Russian assistance and uses Russian nuclear technology.This will be India's first atomic energy venture abroad. According to the December 2014 'Strategic Vision for Strengthening Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy' between India and Russia, the "two sides will explore opportunities for sourcing materials, equipment and services from Indian industry for the construction of the Russian- designed nuclear power plants in third countries".India signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal, along with two more related agreements, with Bangladesh in April when PM Sheikh Hasina was here on a four-day official visit. This was New Delhi's second such agreement in the neighbourhood after an agreement with Sri Lanka reflecting India's growing stature a responsible nuclear power.The Rooppur project will be Bangladesh's first atomic energy project involving two units, each with a capacity of 1200 MWs. Russia and Bangladesh signed a cooperation in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy of in 2010. The Rooppur NPP site is situated 160 km from Dhaka.Rooppur plant will have Russian design AES-2006 with VVER-1200 reactors, the prototype of which was implemented at the Novovoronezh NPP02 in Russia. This is an evolutionary design of III+ generation which is fully compliant with the international safety requirements, according to ROSATOM, Russia’s State-run apex Atomic Energy body.The technology in Novovoronezh offered to Bangladesh could also be extended to the second Russian built set of six reactors in India. The generation III+ reactor at the sixth unit of Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant (NVNPP) is the world’s first to be built using "post-Fukushima" safety standards and has an automated system in case of an emergency, Rosatom officials told ET.Alexey Likhachev, CEO of Rosatom, who was also in Vienna for IAEA conference told media on the sidelines: "Our work here, in Vienna, started with a detailed discussion with our Indian partners in a traditionally friendly format... As agreed, our partners are considering or starting to implement a project related to serial construction of nuclear facilities based on the Russian design on the new site in India. Of course, we will offer our flagship VVER-1200 reactor design. On this new site, now that our facilities will be built on it on a serial basis, we are working to localize manufacturing of a part of the equipment in India, and we have started the discussion of possible cooperation in implementation of projects in third countries. We selected the Rooppur NPP project in Bangladesh, where we will pour first concrete and start full-scale construction works in the following few months, as the flagship pilot project for interaction with India. The Indian partners are very positive about this pilot project, and I hope that, on the basis of our interaction between India, Bangladesh and Russia, we and our Indian partners will develop approaches to work in third country markets."