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The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is set to table the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India bill, 2025 (SHANTI), to allow any company or joint ventures to build, own, operate or decommission a nuclear power plant or reactor.

The bill adds that the operator shall be liable for damages except those caused by “a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character, an act of armed conflict, hostility, civil war, and insurrection or terrorism” .

But the operator won’t be liable for damages in “under construction nuclear installation itself and any other nuclear installation including a nuclear installation under construction, on the site where such installation is located, any property on the same site which is used or to be used in connection with any such installation; or the means of transport upon which the nuclear material involved was carried at the time of nuclear incident.”

“The maximum amount of liability in respect of each nuclear incident shall be the rupee equivalent of three hundred million Special Drawing Rights or such higher amount as the Central Government,” the legislation adds.

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The Bill says, “it is desirable to harness the potential of nuclear energy through active involvement of both public and private sectors and to leverage the participation of the domestic industry to contribute to and benefit from the global nuclear energy ecosystem including research, technology, manufacturing, finance, insurance and skill development.”

The bill, however, states that “enrichment or isotopic separation of prescribed substance or radioactive substance, the management of spent fuel, including reprocessing, recycling, separation of radionuclides contained therein and management of high-level radioactive waste arising thereof, the production of heavy water and its upgradation by isotopic separation” would be exclusively undertaken by the government.

The private sector can take part in the fabrication of nuclear fuel including conversion, refining and enrichment of uranium-235 up to such threshold value, or production, use, processing or disposal of other prescribed substances, as may be notified by the Central Government. It can also transport or store nuclear fuel or spent fuel or any other prescribed substance.

The Bill allows “the import, export, acquisition, or possession of nuclear fuel or prescribed substance, the import or export of any technology or software, that may be used for the development, production or use of prescribed substance or prescribed equipment.”

While setting up the facilities or undertaking the activities referred to in sub-section (2), the source material and fissile material in any form, produced within India or imported, shall remain under the surveillance and control of the Central Government for the purposes of accounting; and shall be subject to such safeguards as may be specified by the Central Government, the legislation specified.

The spent fuel has to be delivered to the Central Government for its subsequent management or repatriated to the country of origin and the heavy water used in a nuclear facility shall remain under the supervision of the Central Government, the proposed bill stated.