“Opening up other sectors like power to private companies has been very beneficial. We also aim to achieve net zero by 2030. Therefore, we must move from conventional sources of energy to clean sources. Nuclear energy is self-sufficient, clean and can provide energy 24×7,” the union argued. Minister of State Dr. Jitendra Singh In Parliament.
Defending the drastic changes brought about in the nuclear sector by the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (Peace) Act, 2025, Dr Singh said privatization will ensure ‘affordable power over time’ and ensure energy security. The Act, which replaces two laws – the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, got the assent of the President on December 19, a day after it. Parliament passed it,
“One person can control mining, fuel manufacturing, reactor operations and waste management. This concentration of power in one entity is dangerous,” warned Congress MP Shashi Tharoor during a debate on the bill in the Lok Sabha. He urged the Center to send it to a select committee for further investigation. To no avail, each House debated and passed the bill in one day on 17–18 December
Here’s how much of India’s nuclear sector is open to private players
What can private/foreign players do in the nuclear sector now?
Any company (whether domestic or foreign), any joint venture or any person permitted by the Centre, other than any Government company, may apply for a single license to construct, own, operate or decommission a nuclear power plant or reactor, manufacture, refine, enrich nuclear fuel, etc. This license can be used to import, export, store, transport nuclear fuel, any technology or software used for the above processes.
They will be allowed to carry out these activities only after security authorization. On application, the Center may extend or renew a company’s license or security authorization for any period it deems necessary. It can also modify, suspend, cancel or reduce the duration of the license. The Center also has the power to exempt any radioactive material or any radiation generating plant from safety authorization.
Why open a sector?
“In May 2025, US President Donald Trump passed an executive order in which he said that he (US) should increase diplomatic pressure on countries to get more business for their (US) nuclear reactor companies. Very surprisingly, the peace bill was passed through Parliament last week,” says Dr EAS Sharma, former Principal Advisor (Energy), to The Hindu.
“And then, on December 19 (a day after Parliament passed the peace act), Mr. Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, in which he (the US) said India and other countries should be brought into line with US liability requirements. They do not want to take any liability for a possible accident that is attributable to their flaws, reactor design defects, use of substandard materials.
US President Donald Trump signs the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2018 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, in Washington, DC, US. Photo: AFP via Getty Images
He says that with the entry of foreign reactors in Indian nuclear plants there will be no standardization in operations using different technologies. Lamenting that India was moving away from Dr. Homi Bhabha’s nuclear vision – indigenous core, reactor and fuel, he further said, “Imported fuel is very expensive. Uranium suppliers around the world have created a monopoly, and they dictate terms on price”.
What can’t private players do?
However, only a centrally or wholly owned government entity can undertake enrichment or isotopic separation of radioactive material, management of spent fuel, production of heavy water. Mining of any land or seabed for uranium or thorium will also be done by these government institutions and any mined material will be under government control. They will not be sold, transferred or otherwise disposed of unless the Center allows it.
The fissile material, spent fuel, heavy water used in any nuclear process will remain under the monitoring and control of the Central Government. A national registry of radioactive substances will be maintained by the Center which can also inspect any consignment or plant of such substances to ensure their safety.
Dr. Sharma opposed this, saying that the Center has allowed mining of nuclear material for years by weakening its mining laws. He explains, “Monazite – which is an ore for thorium, was banned from private mining, restricting it only to the public sector like Indian Railways Limited. However, in UPA-1, Dr. Manmohan Singh came under pressure and allowed private players to mine sand, but not monazite. The problem is that when you mine sand on the beach, monazite will be present. So, they (the Centre) increased the permissible limit. 0.5%. All this (monazite) should be kept under the supervision of the Department of Atomic Energy.
Beach sand minerals, also known as rare earths, include a group of seven minerals – garnet, sillimanite, rutile, ilmenite, leucoxene, zircon and monazite. file | Photo courtesy: The Hindu
Despite being under the Centre’s ‘surveillance’, Dr Sharma cites several instances when Monazite was destroyed. trafficking by private players In Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu. In February this year, the Madras High Court ordered a CBI probe after it found large-scale illegal mining of monazite by “collusion, corruption and nexus” between politicians, the executive and private miners.
“The Department of Atomic Energy staff is limited and there is no monitoring, so some of these private miners are quietly smuggling monazite. In 2019, all private mining of beach sand was banned. But in 2021, the NDA government amended the Mines and Mineral Development Regulation Act (MMDRA) to allow private mining in beach sand and soon Adani applied to mine sand in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. “With this, they claim that no mining for nuclear material will be allowed, but such minerals can be mined using MMDRA and smuggling problems will remain,” Dr. Sharma says.
Dr Sharma believes that even the spent fuel, which will be under the Centre’s surveillance, is not possible due to its limited manpower.
Complete exemption from RTI
The most troubling aspect of Shanti is Section 39 which empowers the Center to declare ‘any information’ as restricted, giving it complete immunity from the Right to Information (RTI). The information it may restrict includes the location, design, construction, operation of nuclear reactors, processing and extraction of nuclear materials, research on such materials and any proposed plants to be operated. No one is allowed to publish any information deemed restricted by the Centre.
While Dr Sharma agrees that some information should be restricted from the public, he points out that private players will now have access to it, which was not the case when NPCIL was India’s sole nuclear operator.
“Private players will now know how much fuel is processed, how much fissile material, heavy water is used, but citizens will not know. Once you allow private players, anyone (even a foreign agency) can partner with that private firm, and access this information. We will not even know which foreign agency is the partner of this private company.”
Highlighting the need for citizens to be aware of the spent fuel stored in their vicinity, he warned, “Nuclear waste is highly radioactive and it does not lose its radioactivity for decades. So wherever you store it, it will be a threat to people’s health and put their lives at risk. Even less radiation from (nuclear waste or stored spent fuel) can cause cosmological diseases in people.”
Nuclear as a ‘clean’ source
With a target to reach 100 GW nuclear capacity by 2047, Dr Singh claimed that India’s nuclear sector needs rapid expansion which is possible only through private players. Describing nuclear energy as a clean source, he said it would provide “better cancer treatment and diagnostics, safer food preservation, clean drinking water, better agriculture and reliable supply for India’s growing AI, data centres, hospitals and industries”.
Condemning the rapid expansion in the nuclear sector, Dr Sharma says, “Ground water around nuclear power plants also faces radioactive contamination. Even if a nuclear plant has to be closed after an accident, it cannot be done immediately because of radioactivity. The government has not taken the people, the Parliament, into confidence. Everything is one-sided, and driven by commercial interests.”
