From The Hindu Archives, February 5, 1976: Use of nuclear devices for oil recovery possible

Dr. Homi N. Sethna, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission said here to-day that the AEC was probably one of the few organisations in the country which had conceived and implemented an integrated and comprehensive programme which had yielded demonstrable public benefits.

Dr. Sethna was participating in a seminar on “ The decade of scientific progress.”

Dr. Sethna said that one of the most important achievements was in May 1974 when a peaceful underground nuclear experiment was successfully carried out in Rajasthan. The analysis of data collected from this experiment indicated that such devices could be effectively used for increasing recovery of oil and natural gas and many other infrastructural development projects.

New reactor research centre near Madras

He expressed the hope that the next decade would be one of consolidation and expansion of the atomic energy programme. A new reactor research centre was being built near Madras for research in fast breeder technology which was really the nuclear technology of the future, considering India’s limited resources of uranium and the high efficiency of this reactor system.