Regardless of one’s opinion on nuclear power itself, one aspect that most people should be capable to agree upon is the notion that in order for its positive benefits to reach into the rural areas and bring energy to untapped regions of India, the private sector must be allowed to participate in its development.However, it seems here that the central government has dropped the ball with rumors predicting that such private side involvement will not be able to occur until 2014:

The Hindu reports:

NEW DELHI: The private sector will not be allowed to enter the civilian nuclear power segment for at least another seven years, according to a top government official.The private sector’s entry is conditional on a separate set of rules for the country strategic programme and other alterations in the Atomic Energy Act. “Work is in progress and is at varying stages. This means that the private sector will not get an opportunity till 2014,” said the official who did not wish to be quoted.

The importance of private-public partnerships cannot be understated with regard to accelerating the pace of development and also for its ability to levarge private side innovation with public side guidance. The government’s inability to hammer out the details in this issue will severly hamper the prositive benefits that an expanded civilian nuclear program hopes to provide.