Committees constituted to amend nuclear liability laws

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

The government has constituted committees with members from the Department of Atomic Energy, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Law and Justice to discuss amendments to the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA) to allow private companies to participate in building and commissioning future nuclear reactors, Minister Jitendra Singh said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday (April 2, 2025). However, he did not reveal when this legislation would be brought to Parliament.

Plans to amend these laws were first announced in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget Speech on February 1. Nuclear commerce involving India and western companies had not taken off despite the signing of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal in 2007.

Also read: Nuclear energy — dangerous concessions on liability 

Thus far, western international nuclear power companies have said that clauses in the CLNDA are unacceptable, mandate a high degree of liability for suppliers on nuclear power components, and contradict the international Convention for Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) that focuses only on the immediate liability of operators. The clauses were inserted in 2012, following heated debates in Parliament where members of the National Democratic Alliance, then in the Opposition, had accused the government of letting western companies off from liability responsibilities. They cited the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal that killed thousands in 1984. The debate had also followed the devastating nuclear leak in Fukushima following a tsunami off Japan’s coast.

Also read: Government plans to amend nuclear liability law in spotlight

“The Committees also have to look in (to) the aspect of the waste management, fuel sourcing and handling, decommissioning, implementation of security and safeguards. The activities related to the amendment in the Acts involves various stages of inter- ministerial consultations as well as scientific solution. These activities may require time and in view of this it is not feasible to give a timeline,” said the Union Minister of State for Science and Technology in his written response.

The Nuclear Energy Mission announced in the Budget-2025 envisages deploying 100 GWe (gigawatt-energy) of nuclear energy by 2047. The reply claims ₹20,000 crore has been allocated in the Budget for deployment of five Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) by 2033. SMRs are the future reactors of India with 55 MW capacity but involve design changes that will allow the plant to be built using a modular approach.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is also developing BSMRs (Bharat Small Modular Reactors), which are modified versions of India’s existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PWHR), each having a capacity of 200 MW (Megawatt). They will be fuelled by “slightly enriched uranium” and are being jointly designed and developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).