(This story originally appeared in on Jan 01, 2020)

NEW DELHI: The government has decided to commission a nuclear reactor every year to boost commercial use of civil nuclear energy.A 700-MW pressurised heavy water reactor at Kakrapar nuclear plant in Gujarat is likely to be commissioned by April, Shri Krishna Gupta, a senior official of the department of atomic energy, said on Tuesday.“Kakrapar-3 is likely to be commissioned in mid-2020. Kakrapar-4 by mid-2021 and RAPP-7 by mid-2022 in Rajasthan’s Rawatbhata,” he said. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd’s (NPCIL’s) 22 reactors with installed capacity of 6780 MW are operational, he said. The DAE official said, “Kaiga-1 (KGS-1) reactor has set 962 days of continuous and non-interrupted operation, which is a world record.” He said Tarapur atomic power reactors — Units 1 and 2 — completed 50 years of operation this year. The two boiling water reactors — the first in the country — were commissioned in October 1969.Gupta said, “Seven cancer hospitals are being set up across the country, where we are making use of spin-off technologies for tuberculosis and oral cancer detection.”