This project aimed to support the Nuclear Safety Authority of Georgia (NRSS) in the field of legislation, regulation and regulatory approach (licensing, transport, waste management and storage, inspection, ionising radioactive sources).

The technical tasks of the project were:

Task 2: This task concerned the legislative framework, regulatory role and regulations and was divided into 3 sub-tasks:

• Legislative framework and regulatory role
• Transport of radioactive material
• Radioactive waste management

The Georgian Law on Nuclear and Radiation Safety, dated 1999 and amended in 2006 was discussed, recommendations were provided by the European experts for its improvement and a new version of the Law was prepared in 2008.
Concerning transport, a training session was held and the existing Georgian regulations were discussed during a workshop. As a result, several ways of improvement were identified in order to achieve the compliance of local regulations with the ADR (European agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road).
As regards to the radioactive waste management, a training course was given and the two following documents were commented during a workshop: “Law on Radioactive Waste and Waste Management Facilities” and normative act on “Main Rules for Radioactive Waste Management”.

Task 3: This task aimed to give support to NRSS in order to establish a regulatory system for inspection activities. Concrete European practices were presented to the Georgian experts through two training sessions held in Belgium and in Sweden, completed by a workshop in Tbilissi. Finally, the European experts recommended NRSS to set up an action plan in order to enhance the inspection programme, taking into account the limited resources of NRSS.

Task 4: This task originally aimed to create a complete inventory of ionising radiation sources but NRSS clarified at the beginning of the project that a similar project was already under way with the IAEA. As a result, it was decided that the task 4 would consist of an evaluation of the current Georgian practices concerning the handling of the radioactive sources. The following issues were addressed during two workshops: the information collection and database for radioactive sources, the emergency response to incidents, and the regulation concerning safe handling, inspection and use of radioactive sources.

Task 5: During this task, the technical specifications of the equipment to be purchased were developed. This equipment consisted in radiation measurement devices and in two off-road cars for on-site checking and emergency situations.
See description of the project GE/RA/01/supply for further information about the purchased equipment.