Business - India;Nuke power sector to be opened to pvt players

India will open nuclear power sector to private players after talks on civil nuclear agreement with Canada and Russia conclude, minister for science and technology, Kapil Sibal said on Friday. He said the government is also working towards allowing foreign direct investments in the mining sector.

"Once the negotiations with Russia, and possibly Canada in nuclear commerce talks are done with, the government will soon open up the sector (nuclear power sector) for the private players to participate," Sibal said.

"The government is also drafting regulatory framework towards opening up the mining sector for FDI," he added. The minister called for innovative methods for generating renewable energy, agricultural optimisation, and innovations in technological upgrade. "Technology itself is not the solution, we need to develop parallel infrastructure to run the technology," he said.

The department of science and technology's head for international cooperation YP Kumar said, "Some 14 joint RandD projects have been identified, under the Indo-Canada and Indo-Israel cooperation agreements. This number can be further augmented with greater bilateral interactions."

Canadian high commissioner Joseph Caron said Canada is making efforts for increasing energy efficacy demands. For this, he said India and Canada are exploring the possibility of setting up joint nanotech and biotech centres, and a combined funding of $17 million has been received for this.

CII former president and Hero Honda Corporate Services chairman Sunil Kant Munjal lauded Canada for its work in the field of energy conservation, efficacy and production.

Highlighting the work done by Hero Honda toward preventing climate change, he said, "Hero Honda has setup a new plant at Haridwar, which might be the world's largest green roof. The need of the hour is to think beyond the currently addressed problems, and think about future. Industries in India have woken up a little late, but they are being proactive in addressing the environmental concerns."