Russia's Rosatom offers tech transfer to India in Small Modular Reactors: Report

In what can be termed as a major fillip for India’s nuclear ambitions, a latest media report says that Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear firm, has offered technology transfer to India in Small Modular Reactors. The development, which has been reported by the Economic Times, comes days after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced setting up of Nuclear Energy Mission in her Union Budget speech.

As per Sitharaman, India will work towards developing as many as five Small Modular Reactors indigenously at the cost of Rs 20,000 crore. As the per the Budget speech, India is looking at operationalising these Small Modular Reactors by 2033.

These Small Modular reactors are critical in New Delhi’s dreams of generating 100GW of nuclear energy. As against traditional reactors, the SMRs need much lesser amount of nuclear fuel. In fact, the ET report states that there are some Small Modular Reactors can work without refuelling for up to three decades.

Russia is not the only country that has offered SMR technology transfer to India. The US and France are also actively looking for a partnership with Indian firms in the field.