AERB chairman moots need for national radiation dose registry for all

Dinesh Kumar Shukla, chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), on Wednesday, asked radiation protection experts to ponder upon the need for a national radiation dose registry for all people on the lines of the National Occupational Dose Registry for occupational workers.

Dinesh Kumar Shukla, chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), on Wednesday, asked radiation protection experts to ponder upon the need for a national radiation dose registry for all people on the lines of the National Occupational Dose Registry for occupational workers.

He was speaking after inaugurating the three-day 35th national conference of the Indian Association for Radiation Protection (IARP) at Mangalore University. The theme of the conference was ‘Radiation protection for sustainable nuclear energy and adapting to climate and technological changes.’

Mr. Shukla said that there are two types of exposure to radiation. One is by occupational workers, employed in nuclear power plants, and medical workers who operated X-Ray and CT scanning machines. The second type is by people who have undergone scanning and been exposed to X-Rays during medical test.

“There is a mechanism to monitor the exposure to radiation by occupational workers. But there is no system to measure the dose of radiation received in case of common people exposed to radiation during medical examination.” “For example,” he said, “when a patient exposed to radiation during medical examination changes doctors, they will not know the dosage received by the patient in the earlier examinations. Hence, there is a need to maintain a national radiation dose registry for all people.”

“There is a National Occupational Dose Registry for occupational workers. This can be expanded to everybody. Radiation protection experts should deliberate upon the same in the conference,” Mr. Shukla said, adding that experts should discuss how to integrate this registry.

He said that the basic principles of radiation protection will never change. “Radiation protection systems will contribute to sustainable development of nuclear energy if applied well. But if applied poorly, they might do more harm than good,” Mr. Shukla said.

B. Vinod Kumar, Site Director, Kaiga Generating Station, Kaiga, Karwar, said that nuclear energy is the viable option which is clean, reliable and affordable for reducing carbon emission. It is suitable for large-scale time-bound construction. Nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gas emissions in their operation.