Sekhar Basu appointed as chairman of Atomic Energy Commission

Sekhar Basu was on 10 October 2015 appointed as the chairman of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). By virtue of this position, he will also occupy the office of secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

He will succeed RK Sinha who superannuates on 23 October 2015 and will be in the office till 19 September 2016.

Basu is presently the director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, and also the Chief Executive of Nuclear Recycle Board (NRB), which is a part of BARC.

Contributions of Sekhar Basu

• Basu and his colleagues are mainly responsible for evolving strategies for safe radioactive disposal of waste in gas, liquid and solid forms containing various levels of radioactivity.
• He has designed and built reprocessing plants, fuel storage facilities and nuclear waste treatment facilities at Trombay, Tarapur and Kalpakkam.
• He developed best practices for all the back-end operations of the closed fuel cycle for the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR).
• As the Chief Executive, Nuclear Recycle Board, he is responsible for the design, development, construction and operation of nuclear recycle plants involving reprocessing and waste management.
• He is the Chairman of the International Design Review Committee for heat removal and cooling water systems of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, in which India is one of the participating countries.

For his contributions to the Indian nuclear energy programme at various levels, he was conferred with several awards and honours including Padma Shri (2014), the DAE Special Achievement Award (2007) and Indian Nuclear Society Award (2002).

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