PARLIAMENT QUESTION: STRATEGY FOR NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT

• DAE's strategy for managing nuclear waste arising from India's planned scale-up to 100 GW nuclear capacity by 2047 rests on a nearly closed fuel cycle, reprocessing, and vitrification of high-level waste.
• The guiding philosophy: no waste is released to the environment unless cleared, exempted or excluded from regulation by the regulator.
• UPSC relevance: intersects GS-III (Energy, Science & Tech, Environment) with the three-stage nuclear programme, AERB, and India's net-zero by 2070 trajectory.