NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary panel has supported the India-United States civilian nuclear deal to plug the gap in the country's energy requirements but cautioned the Government against any let-up in the quest for self-reliance.

It has also supported reprocessing of spent fuel of both foreign and Indian origin, while refraining from commenting on many sticking points in the deal.

India and the U.S. are currently discussing whether reprocessing of spent imported fuel should be allowed or not. Supporting New Delhi's stand, the panel said: ``Long-term growth would come only by pursuing a closed cycle approach involving reprocessing of spent fuel, including that of foreign origin, and use of spent plutonium in fast breeder reactors.''

``The committee feels that with the fast depleting conventional resources of energy, the agreement with the U.S. would result in a quantum jump in our nuclear energy generating capacity and would provide the much needed energy security to the country. It desires that the cooperation in nuclear research activities should increase and India should be able to join the international mainstream,'' said the report tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

``As a matter of fact, the programme of 20,000 MWe nuclear power by 2020 envisaged in 1995 did include 8,000 MWe capacity to be established through imported reactors. Considering the large demand for electricity, we can set up more reactors in cooperation with other countries.''

The panel, headed by All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's P. G. Narayanan, took note of the modest reserves of uranium and felt long-term energy security hinged on its effective use along with thorium (of which the country has vast reserves). ``This is the prime objective of the three-stage programme being pursued by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The three stages must be implemented sequentially,'' it emphasised. The DAE must ensure that the country is able to pursue its nuclear energy activities, both civilian and military, according to its own interests, it added.

The DAE officials informed the panel that the country has achieved maturity in the first stage with indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors being based on state-of-the-art technology and operating at high availability factors. But, the committee wanted work to be sustained across the research-development-demonstration and deployment (RD3) chain for the second and three stages.

``This development would be unique to India with no parallel elsewhere. Since each stage is dependent on fissile material availability from the previous state, we must ensure that there is adequate fissile material to take technology development through the RD3 chain.''

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