A leading Indian nuclear scientist has indicated that India should scrap its nuclear energy program.

MP Parameswaran, a former scientist with the Atomic Energy Commission, while acknowledging that India has invested heavily in nuclear power, stressed that the country "will be forced to spend (a) thousand times more than that in the eventuality of a nuclear disaster," he told India's Daily News and Analysis.

India aims to increase its capacity of nuclear power from the current level of less than 5,000 megawatts to 20,000 megawatts by 2020. But anti-nuclear sentiment in India has grown post-Fukushima, with mounting protests at nuclear power sites under construction.

"Has the issue of final disposal of radioactive waste been solved? Has the possibility of nuclear accidents, either due to human or mechanical or natural causes, been totally prevented? The answer is no," Parameswaran said.

The nuclear expert pointed to 750,000 megawatts of power projected for India by 2030 of which fossil fuels will account for 400,000 megawatts.

"A 10 percent increase in this can offset the shortage produced by the suspension of the nuclear energy program. We have all the expertise and production capacity to do this," he said.

At Kudankulam, construction of two 1,000 megawatt nuclear power reactors has been halted for several weeks because of protests by villagers concerned about the possibility of a nuclear accident and the long-term impact it would have on the population.

Parameswaran said the reactors at Kudankulam should be redesigned so they could be operated either with coal or natural gas.

A project of state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India, Kudankulam uses Russian technology and equipment.

En Dudkin, who heads a team of 130 Russian scientists and engineers working on the project told the Business Standard newspaper that Kudankulam "is the safest power plant in the world," noting that the design has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency and certified by the European community and the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

The facility is designed to withstand a magnitude-6.0 earthquake, he said, and the containments protecting the reactor are designed to withstand a tsunami and forceful impacts such as that from a plane crash.

Dudkin said that for India and all major developing countries "there is no other alternative to nuclear energy," adding that it is "the most economic, safe and ecologically clean (energy source)."

India's energy consumption -- fueled mostly by coal -- continues to grow at about 6 percent annually even though nearly 40 percent of households have no access to electricity.