Russia has been building the Koodankulam plant in the southern province of Tamil Nadu since 2002, and has already delivered two nuclear reactors to the facility.
"We expect contracts to build nuclear facilities at this location [in Koodankulam], as well as new ones," Sergei Ivanov said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said during his visit to Moscow earlier this month that Russia and India were drawing up an agreement on the construction of another four nuclear reactors in Koodankulam. A memorandum on the project was signed during President Putin's visit to India in January.
Atomstroyexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, is building the Koodankulam plant in line with an initial 1988 agreement between India and the Soviet Union, modified by an addendum signed ten years later. The plant is designed to have a capacity of 2,000 MW, and Russia has granted India a loan on beneficial terms to build the facility.
A spokesman for Russia's Federal Agency for Nuclear Power said in October that Russia could be very helpful to India in building fast neutron reactors for nuclear power plants if sanctions against the Asian country were to be lifted.
A confirmed nuclear power, India has never been party to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has been under U.S., Japanese and European sanctions since 1998, when it first tested atomic weapons.
In January, Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko called for lifting the restrictions. "Russia believes that India has an unimpeachable reputation in the nuclear non-proliferation sphere, and therefore we are going to push for an end to corresponding sanctions against India," he said at the time.
