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A forward-looking reset for India’s nuclear future
This article is authored by Shishir Priyadarshi, president, Chintan Research Foundation.
The passage of the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill, 2025 by the Lok Sabha on December 17 marks a decisive inflection point in India’s energy policy. Passed despite opposition demands for referral to a parliamentary panel, the bill now moves to the Rajya Sabha—bringing India closer to enacting the most consequential reform of its civil nuclear framework since 2010.
This is not a routine legislative update. It represents a strategic course correction aimed at dismantling long-standing structural barriers that have constrained India’s civil nuclear programme—despite the country’s technological competence, strategic intent, and expanding energy needs. Quietly but firmly, the government has signalled that it is prepared to align ambition with institutional reform.
At stake is far more than legal fine-tuning. India is attempting to reconcile three imperatives simultaneously: sustaining high economic growth, ensuring long-term energy security, and achieving deep decarbonisation. The government’s stated ambition of reaching 100 GW of nuclear power capacity cannot be realised without reforms of precisely this nature.
India’s electricity demand is set to double over the next two decades. While solar and wind will remain the backbone of the clean energy transition, their intermittency and land intensity impose real system-level constraints. Battery storage and grid balancing solutions are improving, but they are not yet available at the scale or cost required to shoulder the full baseload burden.
Nuclear energy, with its low-carbon footprint, high capacity factor, and minimal land use, is uniquely positioned to complement renewables. It offers firm, dispatchable power that stabilises the grid while enabling deep emissions reduction. Recognising this, successive governments have identified nuclear power as a pillar of India’s long-term energy strategy. What has been missing—until now—is a policy framework capable of translating intent into execution.
One of the SHANTI Bill’s most transformative features is its explicit opening of the civil nuclear domain to private sector participation, including the ability to build, own, operate, and decommission nuclear power plants under a strengthened regulatory framework. For decades, nuclear energy in India remained almost entirely within the public sector. That model, while understandable in the programme’s early years, is no longer adequate for the scale and speed now required.
Private participation matters for three reasons. First, nuclear power is capital-intensive, and public finances alone cannot sustain the investment pipeline needed to approach 100 GW. Second, private firms bring execution discipline, technological innovation, and cost efficiencies critical for timely delivery. Third, opening the sector enables technological diversification—particularly the deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactor designs that are gaining global traction.
Importantly, the Bill allows private participation across the entire nuclear value chain, including fuel handling, fabrication, transport, and associated services. This ecosystem approach moves India away from isolated projects toward a mature nuclear industry.
At the heart of the reform lies the recalibration of India’s civil nuclear liability regime. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010, though grounded in legitimate concerns about accountability and victim compensation, placed India outside the global nuclear mainstream. Ambiguity around supplier liability created uninsurable risks, discouraging foreign suppliers and deterring domestic private investment.
The SHANTI Bill moves decisively to correct this. By clearly defining and capping operator liability, linking liability thresholds to reactor size, mandating financial security through insurance, and limiting supplier exposure in line with international conventions, the legislation restores predictability and bankability to nuclear projects.
This is not a dilution of responsibility. Rather, it reflects a mature recognition that swift compensation, credible insurance mechanisms, and robust regulatory oversight serve the public interest far better than legal uncertainty that prevents projects from ever being built.
International experience strongly validates this approach. France, which derives over two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear power, operates under a clearly capped, operator-centric liability regime. The United Kingdom has revived its nuclear programme using regulated asset base models that balance public oversight with private capital. In the United States, private operators dominate nuclear generation under the Price–Anderson Act, which provides clarity, risk pooling, and assured compensation.
In each case, nuclear expansion has depended not on exceptional legal exposure, but on regulatory certainty, institutional strength, and risk-sharing. India’s reforms now place it firmly within this global mainstream.
Globally, nuclear energy is experiencing a resurgence driven by climate imperatives and energy security concerns. By modernising its nuclear laws, India signals its readiness to participate fully in this transition—not as a late adopter, but as a serious long-term player.
Equally significant is the Bill’s effort to modernise and consolidate India’s nuclear governance architecture. By reinforcing the statutory authority of the nuclear regulator, updating legacy legislation, and clarifying mechanisms for claims adjudication, advisory oversight, and appeals, the Bill strengthens—rather than weakens—regulatory oversight.
Expanded nuclear capacity must rest on firmer institutional foundations, clearer accountability, and faster dispute resolution. The SHANTI Bill recognises this reality.
With the Lok Sabha’s passage of the Bill, the debate now shifts from whether reform is necessary to how effectively it will be implemented. The Rajya Sabha’s consideration will be important, and informed scrutiny is both legitimate and welcome. Nuclear energy demands public trust, transparency, and the highest safety standards.
But it is equally important to recognise the cost of delay. Prolonged uncertainty risks stalling investment decisions, supply-chain development, and project pipelines in a sector central to India’s energy security, climate commitments, and economic resilience.
No reform should be immune from debate. Yet a nuclear programme constrained by outdated legal frameworks serves neither safety nor sustainability. By passing this forward-looking legislation, Parliament has taken a pragmatic and necessary step—one that brings India’s nuclear ambitions closer to reality while reinforcing its commitment to accountability, safety, and clean-energy leadership.
This article is authored by Shishir Priyadarshi, president, Chintan Research Foundation.
