NGOs, Nuclear Power, and The FCRA

Democracy needs a thriving civil society, free and fair media, solid independent institutions, and a dynamic political process to flourish. With all its tribulations, India has still managed to do quite well in the 73 years of its independence. Especially considering the rampant culture of military coups in the subcontinent, we have dodged the bullet of the same instability, nurtured basic democratic institutions, and created a civil society that upholds these democratic values.

One of the main pillars of the same civil society are the NGOs. NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) are organisations that operate independently of any government, typically to address the economic and social issues of a country. Majorly NGOs in India are devoted to fighting the absence of necessities that lie at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, namely food, water, and shelter. Education and Healthcare being wheels of the same wagon through which various NGOs try to help people from the most backward parts of our country move up the social ladder.

There's a lot of literature on how NGOs have had an overwhelmingly positive impact on society with genuine economic and social upliftment. Many of them have garnered international praise for their work. For example, Kailash Satyarthi's prize-winning NGO 'GoodWeave International' is dedicated to ending child labour in India.

In this article, I wish to look at the flipside of the same coin and talk about how various NGOs, predominantly foreign owned, have continuously been alleged to hinder the development of nuclear power infrastructure in India. Along the same lines, I wish to make a case for nuclear energy. I will also talk about the FCRA bill that the government passed in retaliation to the protests and how it economically crippled many NGOs, even those trying to serve society.

A CASE FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY

Since its inception, nuclear power and its use and proliferation has been a very contentious issue. All the technical know-how and the equipment required are tightly regulated and correctly so. Still, this exclusivist mindset has deprived developing countries of harnessing a clean, efficient energy source. Also, the lack of awareness about nuclear power among the locals and fear of the unknown drive people to protest against them wherever they are built in India. Many NGOs have opposed their construction along the same lines, terming it to be an environmental hazard and something to be feared.

Let me give you some statistics. Nuclear Energy has been around since 1951, and since then, there have been about 30 big and small accidents related to it, but the two which everyone is familiar with are Fukushima Daiichi in Japan and Chernobyl in Soviet Russia, with Chernobyl being by far the worst. In total, the WHO has estimated that around 4000 people will die prematurely due to the long-term radiation spillover of Chernobyl. The UN Committee of Atomic Energy estimated the number to be much lower. In the case of Fukushima, only one death was directly linked to radiation-induced lung cancer, and others were due to the Tsunami and the stressful evacuation of the areas around.

Anyhow, all of these deaths caused by nuclear power plants are negligible in comparison to the real killer energy source: fossil fuels. The gases and harmful particles released from burning fossil fuels are major contributors to air pollution. According to WHO, air pollution is directly responsible for 29% of all lung cancer cases, 17% of deaths from ALRI, 24% from stroke, and many more. All in all, the study says that burning fossil fuels contributes to around 4 million deaths each year. The fact that damage caused by air pollution is very gradual and our brains haven't evolved with subtle dangers in mind, we don't realize the scope of this problem and vilify a statistically much safer energy source, i.e., nuclear. 

When we look at its economics, nuclear plants are indeed expensive to build, but they are relatively cheaper to run due to the sheer cost-saving done on the fuels. The health and environmental cost, if taken under consideration, only improves the competitiveness of atomic power. The plants are generally shown to work well with lower operating costs than almost all the fossil fuel competitors. There's minimal risk of operating cost inflation since the price of Uranium has been seen to be very stable, unlike fossil fuels. Once a new plant is constructed, the production cost of electricity is low and predictably stable, with an expected operating time of 60 years. Uranium has a particular advantage of being easy and relatively cheap to transport by virtue of being a highly dense source of energy. One kilogram of natural Uranium will yield about 20,000 times as much energy as the same amount of coal. Therefore, it intrinsically becomes a very portable commodity.

A further economic aspect is the system cost of making the supply from any source to meet actual demand from the grid. For example, the cost of creating and maintaining a battery system to save solar energy produced during the day to be consumed in the night. The system cost is minimal with dispatchable sources such as nuclear but becomes a factor for intermittent renewables whose output depends on occasional wind or solar inputs. When the share of such renewables increases above a nominal proportion of the total energy produced, in that case, the system costs escalate significantly and soon exceed the actual generation cost from these sources. This is modeled in a 2019 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency study and is very evident in Germany. 

Brookings Institution performed an energy and cost analysis of various sources of energy. They came out with a report, The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity, in 2014, which stated that" The net benefits of new nuclear plants far outweighs the benefits of new wind or solar plants, with nuclear being the most cost-effective, low carbon power technology. "

Countries like France have around 60% of their total demand met via Nuclear energy, with an average construction time of approximately six years for a new nuclear power plant. So, it's not as if the technology is not scale-able, but the fear-mongering done against them is of such magnitudes that even countries like Germany and Britain were forced to scale back and dismantle their already running plants. This decreased the nuclear energy capacity of Germany from 170 TWh to 75 TWh and from 85 TWh to 57 TWh for Britain in the last 20 years, which risks increasing their dependence on non-renewables.

Nuclear Power In India

In India, the same type of protests was seen against the nuclear power plant built in Kunda Kulam, Tamil Nadu. The whole project was delayed by around two years, only being able to commence electricity production in 2013. Many NGOs were directly found to be linked with agitating the masses to protest against the site, fear-mongering among the locals, and halting construction again and again. Estimated cost overruns suffered by the taxpayer were around 4000 crores, most of which was due to IDC (Interest During Construction) being piled up. The government at the time directly alleged the link of such protests with a few foreign NGOs from the USA and Scandinavian countries. Three of such NGOs had their licenses revoked when it was found that amount of 53 crores was redirected from various schemes to support and finance the protest against the plant.

It finally did work out, and the plant has been running without any significant problem for seven years, but one has to look at the cost overruns incurred on the taxpayer and the opportunity cost of such delays in a crucial energy infrastructure project like this. It's not as if this is an isolated incident. It's been seen time and again in our country. When it comes to Nuclear Energy, the same type of protests are seen in Gorakhpur, Haryana, where a new plant is planned to be constructed.

To curb such protests from happening again, the government at the time decided to revitalize an outdated law first used in Indira's India at the peak of emergency in 1976. 

FCRA Bill: Used and Abused

The Foreign Contribution and Regulation Act was passed in 2010 in response to the continuous protests that were staged against various developmental projects with the complicity of many foreign-funded NGOs. The government said," The act is brought in to ensure foreign donations do not affect internal security of the country with no motive to hinder any NGO's functioning." Although, it is widely believed and seen in the last ten years that this bill is nothing but a tool used by the government to curb and hinder the functioning of NGOs in India. Some major points of the bill are:

1) Cap on administrative expenditure:

The 2010 bill had put an upper limit on the amount these NGOs can spend as administrative expenditure to 50% of the total funds received, which was later made more stringent to a meagre 20% in the 2020 Amendment. This was especially problematic for NGOs working for legal justice, where most of their expense from hiring lawyers to the fees of court proceedings counts as an administrative expense. 

2) Ban on sub-granting:

Many of the more prominent foreign-funded NGOs in India, like 'Greenpeace' work with several smaller NGOs that implement their schemes at the grassroots. In a sweeping blow, this bill ended this sensitive economic ecosystem by banning these bigger NGOs from working as lead implementers and provide sub-grants to smaller ones. 

3) Classic Red-Tapism:

The Indian bureaucracy and political class are renowned the world over for drafting policies that give the government overarching powers and create barriers for those working in a private capacity. The same can be seen in the bill, whether it's the clause that mandates these NGOs to only receive funds through a government-sanctioned branch or how the NGOs are prohibited from transferring their assets in any shape or form.

CONCLUSION 

Several NGOs were indeed found guilty of inciting protests and creating fear among the locals against various developmental projects but drafting such draconian laws can dock the whole structure of NGOs in India. It has been seen repeatedly how the power this law grants to the government is abused to economically choke NGOs that are critical of it, like the example of 'Amnesty' alleging harassment by officials and forced to shut down its operations in India.

It boils down to a philosophical argument. When we look at the economic cost of such massive delays in developing nuclear power plants and many such projects. We're forced to raise major questions against the legitimacy of such entities, and the government is mandated to take action against them, but one has to wonder at what cost? I, as a writer am, conflicted between the two and pose the same question to you. 

-Rashmit Chauhan