The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the 2025 Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, which aims to open up the civil nuclear sector to private operators.
The bill, acronymised as Shanti, had been cleared by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. It requires presidential assent to become a law.
The amendments to the bill and a proposal moved by the Opposition to send the draft legislation to a parliamentary committee for scrutiny were defeated in a voice vote, The Hindu reported.
The draft legislation proposes to grant licenses to private companies, joint ventures and government companies to construct, own, operate or decommission nuclear power plants or reactors.
Other proposed provisions included the removal of a clause in the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act that allows the operator of a nuclear power plant to file legal proceedings against suppliers if their equipment was found to have been in an accident.
In 2008, the Bharatiya Janata Party had moved a no-confidence motion against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the time citing, among other things, the absence of such a provision.
However, after the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act was passed in 2010, this provision was believed to be a reason for the lack of foreign participation in the country’s nuclear sector despite the Indo-US nuclear deal.
The new legislation will introduce a tiered system of payouts by operators in case of accidents, in which their liability will depend on the thermal power capacity of the nuclear plant.
The 2010 law established a flat maximum liability for operators at Rs 1,500 crore.
The bill aims to boost investments in the nuclear power sector to help India achieve its target of 100 gigawatt of nuclear power capacity by 2047.
During the debate in the Upper House on Thursday, Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said that the bill was fundamentally dangerous. “This bill brings neither Shanti nor security...” she said.
She added: “We are not debating whether India should pursue nuclear energy, India has always pursued nuclear energy responsibly for decades...But as a country, are we now prepared to abdicate our sovereign responsibility, gamble with public safety and place one of the most sensitive sectors of the nation at the mercy of crony capitalism and government-friendly oligarchs as well as foreign pressure?”
The bill was not a reform, “it is recklessness”, the Opposition MP said.
“This bill is not for the public, it’s for profit,” she added, adding that it was the Modi government’s “surrender” to the Donald Trump administration in the United States.
Jitendra Singh, the minister of state for the Department of Atomic Energy, said that nuclear power is a reliable source of energy, adding that safety will not be compromised, The Hindu reported.
After the bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new law marks a “transformational moment” for India’s technology landscape. The law will provide a “decisive boost to a clean-energy future”, Modi said on social media.
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