Mumbai, May 26: India has received the first consignment of uranium fuel from Russia for unit-1 of 1000 MW Kudankulam Nuclear power project (KKNPP), an NPCIL spokesperson said today.

"KKNPP, comprising of two units of 1000 MW (e) each, are at an advanced stage of completion in technical collaboration with the Russian Federation and the Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel for its first unit arrived at Kudankulam yesterday," according to Nuclear Power Corporation of India limited (NPCIL) spokesperson A I Siddiqui.

The KKNPP is under construction at Kudankulam located in Radhapuram taluka of Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district. The project is set up through a bilateral agreement between the erstwhile USSR and India.

"The life time fuel supply for Kudankulam reactors is covered through a sovereign guarantee of Russian Federation," he said.

Under the Indo-Russian collaboration, India can reprocess the spent fuel from these reactors and all the activities at Kudankulam will be under International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards, NPCIL said.

The two KKNPP units belong to advanced design of VVER family, a pressurised light water reactor (LWR), constituting majority of nuclear reactors of the world using LEU.

This kind of fuel is in use in VVER-1000 MW units in several countries around the world since 1980s and has given excellent performance, Siddiqui said.

Meanwhile, construction activities are being carried out round the clock for an early completion of the project and till date about 86 per cent has already been achieved, Siddiqui said.

All major components have already been erected at site and concurrently the pre-commissioning activities have also been commenced.

"Indian engineers and scientists have also been trained and qualified for commissioning, operation and maintenance activities," he said.