NFC lauded for its role in Indian nuclear programme

AS Rao Nagar: Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) celebrated NFC Day on Friday at Dr Homi Bhabha Convention Centre, DAE Colony, Hyderabad. KN Vyas, Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) & member, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) graced the function as Chief Guest.  Dr U Kamachi Mudali, Chairman & Chief Executive, Heavy Water Board (HWB) was the guest of honour at the function.  

Vyas congratulated the NFC Chief Executive and the staff for sustained production of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) fuel and excellent performance over the years.  He also highlighted the important role played by NFC in the nuclear power programme of the country which is appreciated at different levels.  He stressed on the importance of several collaborative ambitious programmes taken up by BARC and NFC in this regard.    

Dr Mudali complimented NFC in meeting the commitments of the department and for its developmental activities.  He further complimented NFC for the technological support in setting up Magnesium Technology Development Project, being executed by HWB, NFC and DMRL.  He appreciated the introduction of automation in production lines, implementation of Swachh Bharat activities and green technologies.  
He stated that over the years NFC has pioneered the fabrication of a variety of fuels and stated NFC was poised to meet the ever-increasing mandate of the Department. C Phani Babu, Dy. Chief Executive, NFC welcomed the gathering.  

Dr Dinesh Srivastava, Chief Executive, NFC highlighted various achievements of NFC during 2017-18 viz. sustained production of PHWR fuel assemblies, Uranium and Zirconium Oxide Powders, Zirconium Sponge etc.  He also emphasized on few of the major achievements like production of coolant tubes by new process route, successful demonstration of the scaled-up batch of reduction and vacuum distillation in the production of zirconium sponge, introduction of in-situ cooling of the reduction furnace etc.  

He further mentioned that NFC has developed equipment like automatic spacer pad welding machine, element weighing conveyor system, besides operation of automatic pellet loading machine and introduction of motorized bunker discharge system.  He added that indigenization of cost-effective high frequency resonant power supply for imported Electron Beam Welding equipment was a success story under the Make in India campaign.

Dr Srivastava sated that the efforts in the direction of safety and improvements of working atmosphere, activities towards the Green environment and Swachh Bharat like reduction of effluent generation and their modified treatment, disposal of scrap, maintenance of clean work areas etc. 

While highlighting the importance of safety, quality, automation and the consequential increase in productivity, Dr. Srivastava stated that the vibrant response provided by the scientific and technical staff, coupled with innovative approaches in problem-solving which has resulted in realizing the aforementioned achievements, besides addition of several state-of-the-art process equipment to augment the service delivery capacities, both in the production and quality control streams, which are indigenously manufactured and some developed in-house.  

The annual Highlights magazine of NFC was released by the Chief Guest and Awards for Excellence of Work were presented on this occasion. Representatives of various Unions/Associations viz., NFCIWU, NUFCOSSA, NFCSAA, NUFCOA have spoken on this occasion and assured their cooperation in all endeavors of NFC.  Former Chief Executives, senior retired Officers and large numbers of employees of NFC have witnessed the celebrations.