Leader of Opposition V. S. Achuthanandan has said that the Centre should back out of the proposed neutrino observatory project on the border with Tamil Nadu.
The project is being set up to detect and study neutrinos, smallest particles known to humans.
TUNNEL THREAT
A tunnel being built for the purpose would start in the Tamil Nadu side of the Western Ghats and end in Idukki in Kerala, Achuthanandan told newspersons here.
For the most part, it would pass under Kerala’s territory, putting the vulnerable biodiversity in the Western Ghats in jeopardy. The tunnel would reside within proximity to the tremor-prone Mullaperiyar region, Achuthanandan said.
He wondered whether the State government was kept in the know of things even as work on the project was sought to be escalated. Environmental experts and other stakeholders have not been taken into confidence either, he said.
FOURTH FACILITY
The huge neutrino detector would be built in a cavern at a depth of 1 km from the surface under a massive rock, at the end of a two-km-long tunnel.
India will be the fourth country to execute such a massive project after Canada, Japan and Italy.
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is the nodal institution for carrying out the Rs 1,375-crore ‘Indian Neutrino Observatory’ project.
It is being undertaken jointly by the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology. It is latest in the series of neutrino detectors, neutrino factories and long baseline neutrino experiments being set up worldwide to promote research in particle physics.
LOCATION INTEREST
A project primer says that the geographical location for any India-based neutrino laboratory is ‘particularly interesting.’ This is because most of the neutrino detectors are scattered around the world at latitudes above 35 deg. There is none close to the equator as yet.
But here, it is possible to push such a detector down to almost 8 deg latitude in South India, within proximity to the Equator. This permits neutrino astronomy searches covering the whole celestial sky and study of solar neutrinos passing through the Earth’s core.