The SHANTI Rules Close for Comment: How India Is Rebuilding Its Nuclear Law

🗞️ Why in News Public consultation on the draft SHANTI Rules, 2026 and the draft SHANTI Regulations, 2026 closed at 8 p.m. on September 4, 2026. The Rules are issued by the Department of Atomic Energy and the Regulations by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, and together they will operationalise a statute that replaced the two laws that governed Indian nuclear energy for decades.

The Statute Underneath

SHANTI stands for Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India. As background, the Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 15 December 2025, was enacted in December 2025, and came into effect on 21 December 2025. Against the same background, the draft Rules and draft Regulations were published on 14 August 2026, giving a consultation window of about three weeks.

Two statutes became one framework. The significance is not administrative tidiness. The 1962 Act and the 2010 Act were the two separate obstacles that had, for different reasons, kept private and foreign capital out of Indian nuclear power. Consolidating them into a single law was the only way to address both at once.

What the Draft Rules Propose

A single composite licence. The draft Rules provide for one licence covering construction, ownership, operation and decommissioning of a nuclear power plant, rather than a sequence of separate clearances at each stage.

Private and foreign participation. The Act permits private companies to undertake a wider range of peaceful nuclear activities, including building, owning and operating nuclear power plants, and research and development in nuclear science.

A statutory regulator. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, constituted in 1983 by executive order, receives full statutory status under the new framework.

Why statutory status for the AERB is the reform that matters most. A regulator created by executive order can, in principle, be reconstituted by the same executive that created it, and until now the AERB reported into the same governmental structure that owns and operates the reactors it regulates. That structural conflict has been the standing criticism of Indian nuclear regulation for forty years, including in Comptroller and Auditor General reporting. It is also the point international partners raised most consistently, because regulatory independence is treated as a precondition for technology transfer.

The Liability Question

The 2010 Act was the sticking point in Indian nuclear diplomacy for fifteen years. Its distinctive feature was supplier recourse: the operator, having compensated victims, could in defined circumstances proceed against the supplier of the equipment. International practice channels liability almost exclusively to the operator, on the reasoning that the operator controls the plant day to day, and that a supplier facing open-ended liability will simply decline to supply.

That provision is why the India-United States civil nuclear agreement of 2008 produced very little actual construction. The diplomatic breakthrough was real; the commercial follow-through was not, because no vendor would accept the recourse exposure.

What the new regime actually does to recourse, stated precisely. Under the SHANTI framework there is no statutory right of recourse against a supplier. Recourse survives only as a contractual right, that is, only where the operator has negotiated it into the supply contract, together with a carve-out for intentional acts causing nuclear damage. “Recast” understates this: the statutory hook has gone, and what remains is whatever the parties write down.

The draft Rules also place a financial-security obligation on the operator. Channelling liability to the operator is only meaningful if the operator can pay, so the drafts require operators to maintain insurance or equivalent financial security. That provision, rather than the liability cap itself, is what determines whether a victim is actually compensated.

The consultation drew international attention for exactly this reason. The United States nuclear industry was reported to be preparing a detailed submission on the draft Rules ahead of the September 4 deadline, and the treatment of insurance and operator liability in the draft is the specific object of that attention.

The balance an answer must hold. Channelling liability to the operator raises investment and lowers the cost of nuclear power. It also shifts risk away from the party that manufactured a defective component, and Bhopal is the reason Indian legislators built supplier recourse in the first place. A good answer names both, and says which risk it is willing to bear and why. It does not pretend the trade-off is absent.

Where India’s Nuclear Programme Actually Stands

The gap is the argument. Moving from about 8.78 GW to 100 GW in roughly two decades is an order-of-magnitude expansion, and it is not achievable on government balance sheets alone at the pace required. That arithmetic, rather than any change of ideology about atomic energy, is what produced the SHANTI Act.

The three-stage programme remains the frame. India’s nuclear programme, designed by Homi J. Bhabha, runs in three stages: Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors using natural uranium; Fast Breeder Reactors using the plutonium bred in stage one; and finally thorium-based reactors, drawing on India’s large thorium reserves. The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam attained first criticality earlier this year, as the table above records, which marked India’s formal entry into the second stage.

UPSC Relevance

GS Paper 3. Infrastructure and energy; awareness in the field of nuclear technology; indigenisation of technology; environment and climate commitments.

GS Paper 2. Statutory, regulatory and quasi-judicial bodies; government policies and interventions; effect of policies of developed countries on India’s interests.

The Mains framing. The reform is best analysed as three separable moves that happen to travel in one statute: market opening (who may build and operate), liability reallocation (who pays when it goes wrong), and regulatory independence (who says whether it is safe). They can be evaluated separately, and a candidate who supports one need not support all three.

A Mains question worth preparing. “The SHANTI Act, 2025 opens India’s civil nuclear sector to private participation while recasting the liability regime. Critically examine the trade-off between attracting investment and preserving accountability for nuclear damage. (250 words)”

Prelims focus. The full form of SHANTI; the two statutes repealed; the year the AERB was constituted and its new statutory status; the composite licence; the three-stage programme; PFBR criticality; the 100 GW target.

📌 Facts Corner — Knowledgepedia

Prelims, statement-ready facts:

• SHANTI stands for Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India.
• Public consultation on the draft SHANTI Rules and Regulations closed at 8 p.m. on 4 September 2026.
• The draft Rules are issued by the Department of Atomic Energy; the draft Regulations by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
• The SHANTI Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 15 December 2025 and the Act came into effect on 21 December 2025.
• The draft SHANTI Rules, 2026 and draft SHANTI Regulations, 2026 were published on 14 August 2026.
• Under the SHANTI framework there is no statutory right of recourse against a supplier; recourse is contractual only, with a carve-out for intentional acts.
• The draft Rules require operators to maintain insurance or equivalent financial security.
• It replaced the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010.
• The draft Rules provide a single composite licence for construction, ownership, operation and decommissioning.
• The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board was constituted in 1983 by executive order and receives full statutory status.
• India has 24 operational nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of about 8,780 MW.
• The Nuclear Energy Mission target is 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047.
• Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited operates India’s nuclear power plants under the Department of Atomic Energy.
• The 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam attained first criticality on 6 April 2026.
• India’s three-stage nuclear programme was designed by Homi J. Bhabha.

Prelims, the traps:

• The SHANTI Act repealed two statutes, not one: both the 1962 Act and the 2010 liability Act.
• Supplier recourse under the 2010 Act was an Indian departure from international practice, which channels liability to the operator.
• The AERB existed before SHANTI; what changed is statutory status, not creation.
• Stage two of the three-stage programme uses fast breeder reactors and plutonium, not thorium; thorium belongs to stage three.

Mains, arguments and keywords:

• Frame: one statute carries three separable reforms, market opening, liability reallocation and regulatory independence.
• Keywords: supplier recourse, operator liability channelling, composite licence, regulatory independence, Nuclear Energy Mission.
• The arithmetic of 8.78 GW to 100 GW by 2047 is what forced private entry, not a change of doctrine on atomic energy.
• Counter-argument: liability channelling shifts risk away from the manufacturer of a defective component, which is why Bhopal informs the 2010 Act.
• Way forward: pair liability channelling with a credible insurance pool and a genuinely independent regulator, or the bargain is one-sided.

Interview, be ready for:

• Probe: “Was the 2010 liability law a mistake?” Answer through what it was protecting against, then whether the instrument fit the aim.
• Probe: “Can a regulator be independent when the government owns the reactors?” Statutory status is necessary; discuss what else independence requires.

Sources: Department of Atomic Energy, Public Consultation on Draft SHANTI Rules and Regulations, PRS Legislative Research, SHANTI Bill 2025

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