Kaiga: Health study in March

DHARWAD: Kaiga Nuclear power Generation Station’s Site Director J P Gupta said that the proposed study of the impact of radiation on the health condition of the local people at Kaiga will be taken up from March.Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, he informed that Manipal University has been approached to conduct the study, wherein experts will conduct the epidemiological survey around Kaiga power plant.Though the Tata Memorial Cancer Research Institute had already been engaged to conduct the health-related study in all NPCL units in the country, following the demand by Kaiga residents, the state government had asked to carry out a separate study. It may be recalled that in 1998, Manipal’s Kasturba Medical College had conducted a similar kind of study. Denying that nuclear radiation was the major cause of cancer, Gupta said the average cancer rate in the vicinity of NPCL units was much less than the national cancer average in the country. “While the cancer rate was 98.5 per one lakh in the country, it was 54.04 in the NPCL unit areas.