India is not transparent about its fissile material stocks, reported alleged.
AB Wire
A US-based think-tank has said that India has “one of the largest nuclear power programs” among developing nations.
In a report released on Tuesday, Institute for Science and International Security has said that by the end of 2014, India had a substantial stock of weapon-grade plutonium to hold an estimated stock of atomic weapons in the range of 75-125.
“An estimate of India’s nuclear arsenal can be derived by considering its weapon-grade plutonium stock. The resulting estimate has a median of 138 nuclear weapons equivalent with a range of 110 to 175 weapons equivalent”, the report said.
“However, the actual number of nuclear weapons India built from its stocks of weapon-grade plutonium must be less. When accounting for the amount of plutonium in the weapons production pipelines and in reserves, it is reasonable to assume that only about 70 percent of the estimated stock of weapon-grade uranium is in nuclear weapons,” it said.
“Thus the predicted number of weapons made from its weapon-grade plutonium at the end of 2014 is about 97 with a range of 77-123. These values are rounded to 100 nuclear weapons with a range of 75-125 nuclear weapons,” the report co-authored by David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini said.
Estimating that the largest democratic nation has made 100-200
kilograms of weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons, the report ‘India’s Stocks of Civil and Military Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium, End 2014’ concluded that India has “one of the largest nuclear power programs among developing nations”.
“Faced with a lack of information but evidence that India has produced HEU (highly enriched uranium) for nuclear weapons, it is assumed that India has made 100-200 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons. Of course, this estimate is highly uncertain” it said.
“It has a substantial stock of nuclear weapons made from weapon-grade plutonium, and perhaps some thermonuclear weapons that rely on both weapon-grade plutonium and weapon-grade uranium,” the report said.
“However, India also has a growing gas centrifuge program capable of producing significant amounts of HEU mostly for naval reactor fuel and perhaps for nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear weapons,” it added while accusing that India was not transparent about its fissile material stocks.