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India's Nuclear Future

The SHANTI Act (Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India), passed in December 2025, represents a fundamental restructuring of India's nuclear governance. It aims to scale up capacity to 100 GW by 2047 and achieve net zero by 2070 by addressing the legal and financial bottlenecks that previously stifled the sector. Based on the provided sources, here is how the SHANTI Act transforms India's nuclear energy landscape: 1. Ending the State Monopoly on Generation Historically, India's nuclear sector was a state monopoly constrained by limited public funding. The SHANTI Act fundamentally changes this by: • Opening the door to the private sector: It allows private Indian companies and joint ventures to build, own, operate, and decommission nuclear power plants. • Separating commercial from strategic: The Act distinguishes between commercial power generation (open to private players) and strategic functions like fuel enrichment, uranium mining, and waste management. The government retains full sovereign control over these strategic segments to ensure non-proliferation and adherence to India's three-stage nuclear program. 2. Resolving the Liability Bottleneck Previous liability norms were perceived as open-ended and risky, which deterred domestic and foreign investors. The SHANTI Act introduces a predictable risk-sharing framework: • Capped Liability: It caps operator liability at 300 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) per nuclear incident (approximately Rs 111 per SDR in 2025). • Government Backing: Damages exceeding this cap are covered by the central government, potentially through a Nuclear Liability Fund and international conventions. • Insurance Viability: By defining clear limits, the Act enables insurers to price coverage confidently, making projects "bankable" for investors and suppliers. 3. Modernizing Regulatory and Legal Architecture The Act replaces and consolidates parts of the Atomic Energy Act (1962) and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (2010) to create a more robust governance structure. • Statutory Authority for AERB: It grants statutory backing to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), empowering it to enforce safety standards and conduct inspections more effectively. • New Dispute Resolution Hierarchy: It establishes a four-tier adjudication system. Disputes regarding AERB decisions move to an expert advisory council, then to the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL)—now augmented with nuclear experts—and finally to the Supreme Court. • Streamlined Compensation: A specialized claims commission structure is created to ensure faster adjudication and binding compensation awards for victims in the event of an incident. 4. Enabling the Energy Transition The Act positions nuclear power not just as a strategic asset, but as a critical component of India's green energy transition. • Baseload Power: It recognizes that while renewable capacity has tripled, nuclear is essential for providing clean, round-the-clock baseload power to fill the gaps left by variable renewables like solar and wind. • Financial Integration: The Act seeks to unlock "green finance" by aligning nuclear energy with sustainable finance taxonomies, potentially lowering the cost of capital for these intensive projects. Critical Hurdles for Implementation While the SHANTI Act provides the necessary legal framework, the sources note that its success depends on subsequent implementation steps: • Tariff Clarity: Investors require predictable tariff frameworks and long-term power purchase agreements to commit capital. • Human Capital: The workforce must be scaled up significantly through collaboration with institutes like IITs and NITs to manage the targeted twelvefold increase in capacity. • Grid Infrastructure: Robust transmission systems are required to handle large-scale nuclear reactors to avoid the evacuation bottlenecks seen in the renewable sector.