Amendments to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA), 2010, are going to take time, said Jitender Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Department of Atomic Energy, on April 9, implying that direct private participation in the nuclear sector is not going to happen anytime soon.
“Before we come out with the amendments, we have to understand the requirements since we are now talking about getting private companies to invest in nuclear power capacity addition and technology. We have to first study all the aspects and then the modifications will be decided upon. It will take time. We cannot be rushing through these laws,” Singh told Moneycontrol in an interaction on the sidelines of Network18’s Rising Bharat Summit in New Delhi.
When specifically asked if it would take about a year for the amendments to be tabled in Parliament, he said "a specific timeline can't be given".
Singh said 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 examine the scope of modifications that would be needed. He added that discussions with industry stakeholders will also be done in this regard.
India’s current nuclear power capacity is 8.8 GW, with an aim to increase it to 22.48 GW by 2031-32, and eventually to 100 GW by 2047—a project that could be accelerated with private participation. For this, India announced a National Nuclear Energy Mission in its 2025 Union budget with an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore.
The minister said the government is also looking for an appropriate model that would be representative of the country's renewed nuclear power push. “We already have models to take a leaf from such as the IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre) in the space sector and the Bio-RIDE scheme from the DBT (Department of Biotechnology),” he said.
Also read: Explained: All you need to know about the US-India nuclear deal.
IN-SPACe is an autonomous nodal agency established by the government in June 2020 that facilitates private sector participation in India's space sector by promoting, enabling, authorising and supervising space activities. The Bio-RIDE scheme is a unified initiative by the DBT to support cutting-edge research and development in biotechnology, and measures to promote bio-entrepreneurship and strengthen India's position in biomanufacturing.
Singh called the step to expand India’s nuclear power capacity a “brave move”. “It requires a lot of courage to break a taboo, which the nuclear sector has been facing in India. It has happened only because of the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has pushed collaborations with PSUs (public sector undertakings) such as NTPC and Indian Oil. Moving forward, now PM Modi is pushing for private participation,” he said.
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