The Madras High Court today gave its go-ahead for the commissioning and fuel loading of the unit 1 of the two 1,000 Mw Russian reactors at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, coming up at Tirunelveli district in Chennai.

The green signal is a boost to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, setting up the units, against which there have been agitations by locals. Dismissing the petitions filed by eight different petitioners on environment safety, the court upheld the recent clearance granted by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).