"India targets 100 GW nuclear capacity by 2047 amid AI and data centre demand"
Small Modular Reactor (SMR)
compact nuclear reactor typically under 300 MWe, factory-fabricated for faster deployment and lower upfront cost
Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR)
India's indigenous reactor design using natural uranium fuel and heavy water as moderator
India's civil nuclear programme has been shaped by decades of strategic compulsion. Following the 1974 Pokhran nuclear test, India faced a prolonged technology denial regime that cut it off from international nuclear commerce. Forced into self-reliance, the country developed the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) as its indigenous workhorse — a design using natural uranium fuel and heavy water as moderator, avoiding dependence on enriched uranium from foreign suppliers. This technological self-sufficiency gave India a cost advantage: domestically built PHWRs cost roughly $1,700 per kilowatt, well below the cost of imported reactor designs.
The 2008 India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, and the associated Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver, ended over three decades of nuclear isolation, enabling India to access international fuel markets and civilian nuclear technology — though enrichment and reprocessing technology transfers remained excluded. The overarching strategic framework has always been the three-stage nuclear programme, conceived to exploit India's limited uranium reserves while eventually tapping its abundant thorium deposits. For decades, the sector remained a state monopoly under the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), with private participation legally prohibited. The recent passage of the Strategic Harnessing of Atoms for New Technologies and Industries (SHANTI) Act marks a structural break from this model, opening the sector to private players and foreign technology partners for the first time.
India's three-stage nuclear programme is the conceptual spine of its long-term energy strategy. Stage I relies on PHWRs using natural uranium as fuel; the spent fuel generates plutonium as a by-product. Stage II deploys Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), which use this plutonium combined with depleted uranium as initial fuel, while using Thorium-232 (Th-232) as a blanket material to breed Uranium-233 (U-233). Stage III then uses U-233 as fuel in advanced reactors, with Th-232 as the primary input — enabling India to leverage its world-class thorium reserves for long-term fuel self-reliance. A landmark milestone was achieved when India's first indigenous Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam attained criticality, marking the country's entry into Stage II of this programme.
India currently operates 25 nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 8.7 GWe, with 10 more reactors (~8 GWe) under construction and another 10 units (~6.6 GWe) in the pre-project stage. The gap between the current ~8.7 GWe and the 100 GWe target by 2047 is enormous, requiring a roughly twelve-fold expansion in roughly two decades. …
In India, why are some nuclear reactors kept under 'IAEA Safeguards' while others are not?
Recently, India signed a deal known as 'Action Plan for Prioritization and Implementation of Cooperation Areas in the Nuclear Field' with which of the following countries?
Consider the following statements about India's three-stage nuclear programme:
1.Stage I reactors use natural uranium as fuel and generate plutonium as a by-product.
2.Stage II Fast Breeder Reactors use Thorium-232 directly as primary fuel.
3.Stage III reactors are designed to use Uranium-233 bred from Thorium-232 as fuel.
4.The Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam recently attained criticality, marking India's entry into Stage II.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
With reference to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) being developed under India's Nuclear Energy Mission, which of the following is/are correct?
1.The Bharat Small Modular Reactor (BSMR-200) has a capacity of 200 MWe.
2.One of the SMR designs is intended for hydrogen production via a thermochemical process.
3.The Nuclear Energy Mission has a budgetary outlay of Rs 10,000 crore.
4.The target is to have at least five indigenous SMRs operational by 2033.
Select the correct answer using the code below:
Consider the following pairs regarding India's nuclear reactor projects:
Project — Status
1.Kalpakkam Fast Breeder Reactor — Attained criticality recently
2.Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant — Uses VVER reactor design
3.Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant — Uses Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) design
4.BSMR-200 — Being developed by BARC for demonstration
How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
Assertion (A): India's international nuclear collaboration for new reactor projects is expected to focus on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) rather than large Light Water Reactors (LWRs).
Reason (R): Large Light Water Reactors have significantly higher per-unit capital costs, and capital costs account for the dominant share of nuclear power's Levelised Cost of Electricity.
Which of the following is correct?
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