Discuss the significance of the Nuclear Energy Mission in achieving India's Net Zero target by 2070. What legislative reforms are necessary to attract private investment in the nuclear sector?

Announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, the Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat commits ₹20,000 crore to Small Modular Reactor (SMR) R&D and targets 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 [1] — making nuclear the low-carbon baseload pillar of India's Net Zero-by-2070 pathway.

Significance for the Net Zero 2070 goal

• Firm, low-carbon baseload: solar and wind are intermittent; nuclear supplies round-the-clock power, stabilising a grid dominated by variable renewables.
• Scale of the leap: installed capacity is to rise from about 8,180 MW to 22,480 MW by 2031-32 through indigenous 700 MW reactors and international cooperation [2], with 100 GW as the 2047 milestone [3].
• Technological shift: at least five indigenously designed SMRs by 2033, including the 220 MWe Bharat Small Modular Reactor, permit siting at retiring thermal plants and captive industrial use, aiding hard-to-abate sectors [4].
• Energy security: reduces fossil-fuel import dependence while realising Homi Bhabha's three-stage programme.

Legislative reforms to attract private investment

• Ending the state monopoly: the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 reserved generation for the Department of Atomic Energy, deterring private capital.
• Liability certainty: the supplier-recourse provision of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 discouraged domestic and foreign vendors.
• The SHANTI Act, 2025 — which received Presidential assent on 21 December 2025 — repeals both laws, permitting private entities to build and operate plants and manufacture equipment, while introducing a graded liability framework and a structured licensing-and-safety authorisation regime [5].
• Sovereign safeguards retained: the fuel cycle, waste management and security functions remain exclusively with the Government [5].
• Pending needs: an independent, statutorily empowered regulator, tariff and PPA clarity, and insurance-pool depth to make projects bankable.

Nuclear energy alone cannot decarbonise India, but it supplies the dependable core around which renewables can scale. If the SHANTI framework is matched by regulatory independence and transparent public-private partnerships [6], the Mission can convert a long-stalled sector into a credible engine of the 2070 net-zero commitment and of energy self-reliance.