Chennai, June 25 Peer reviewing the nuclear and radiation safety in India, an expert team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed satisfaction at India's atomic energy sector regulator's professionalism, said India's atomic energy sector regulator.
The Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) team from IAEA recently concluded its 12 day peer review of the progress made by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) in the implementation of the recommendations and suggestions relating to nuclear power plants made by IRRS during its 2015 review mission.
The follow-up mission had an extended scope, also reviewing radiation sources. Such sources are used in facilities and in activities in the country in the field of research, industry, medicine and agriculture, said IAEA.
The IRSS team also noted areas where improvements can be made to strengthen the radiation safety regulatory oversight programme for all facilities and activities using radiation sources.
While handing over the draft report to G. Nageswara Rao, Chairman, AERB on June 20, 2022, the IRRS team led by Ramzi Jammal acknowledged that the AERB has acted on all the recommendations and suggestions made during the 2015 mission and thus significant improvements have been made in various areas and noted a number of achievements in the following areas:
- improved inspection programme, including enhanced training and strengthening the powers of inspectors;
- staff qualification and training programmes aimed at building and maintaining expertise necessary for discharging its responsibilities and
- process for regularly reviewing regulations and guides.
Of its earlier 13 recommendations and 21 suggestions, the IRRS team closed 11 recommendations and 20 suggestions and did not make any new findings in relation to the topics covered during the IRRS initial mission, AERB said.
"The AERB has acted on all of the recommendations and suggestions of the initial mission of 2015 and, as a result, significant improvements have been made in many areas," said Ramzi Jammal, Executive Vice-President and Chief Regulatory Operations Officer, Regulatory Operations Branch, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the IRRS team leader.
"India and the AERB should take pride in the achievements they have accomplished, and we encourage the AERB to continue their improvements to ensure that the public, workers and the environment remain protected," he added.
The IRRS team, comprising seven senior regulatory experts from Canada, Finland, Romania, Slovenia and the United States, and three IAEA staff members, conducted a series of interviews and discussions with AERB staff.
The IRRS team also made recommendations for improving the regulatory arrangements in India like:
- the need for a systematic manner in how safety assessments are included in the license application;
- revision of the frequency of planned inspections and the duration of validity of regulatory consent in accordance with a graded approach;
- development of a national policy and strategy to define responsibilities in regaining control over orphan sources; and
- the revision of regulations and guides, where appropriate, to ensure consistency with the IAEA safety standards and clarification of the hierarchy of the regulatory documents.
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