Chennai: N.Srinivasan, one of the pioneers of the Indian atomic energy programme and the first project director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), passed away here Sunday due to cardiac arrest, the IGCAR said. He was 84.

Joining the country's nuclear establishment in 1953, Srinivasan was the design engineer for the plutonium plant at Trombay, and he established the indigenous technology for reprocessing of spent fuels from thermal reactors.