Opinion | SHANTI Bill May Not Necessarily Be A Nuclear 'Sell-Out', After All

SHANTI (Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India) is now law. The President's assent will not end the debate around it, because the stakes go beyond megawatts. If SHANTI is to be remembered as a turning point rather than another acronym, it will require discipline in delivery.

Implementation is where nuclear plans usually stumble because nuclear energy is not a single decision. It is an ecosystem. SHANTI's success will be decided by whether India can strengthen weak links quickly and visibly. India's nuclear story has not lacked ambition. What it has been short of, at times, is execution that survives the grind of regulation, finance, contracting, and public trust.

Whether SHANTI is a sell-out dressed up as reform, or a lever for reliable power for industry and cities, and for turning rural power from a lottery into a utility, will be decided by the hard work of implementation.

If there is one lesson from nuclear power worldwide, it is that laws do not build reactors. Institutions do. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) will now be the centre of gravity. In any serious nuclear build-out, the regulator is the credibility machine.

That means a few immediate tasks.

Let Rules Actually Mean Something

First, staffing and skills. AERB needs a surge in capacity: specialised inspectors, risk analysts, and emergency preparedness experts. If India is genuinely planning scale, the inspection load does not rise linearly. It rises steeply. Without deeper benches, rulebooks become paper.

Second, speed with discipline. The rules and guidance that operators and suppliers need must be issued quickly, but carefully. If approvals are slow, projects stall. If approvals look casual, trust collapses. The balance is a predictable calendar: what rules will be notified when, what standards will apply to new designs, and what evidence will be required at each stage.
Third, enforcement culture. Nothing signals seriousness like a regulator that can say no, and can be seen saying no, when standards are not met. The credibility of SHANTI, at home and abroad, will hinge on whether AERB is willing to enforce without fear or favour.

Finally, emergency readiness needs attention. AERB should ensure credible drills are run by the operator with state and district authorities, not only table-top exercises. A nuclear programme is judged by how it performs on its imagined worst day, not the average day.

Even with a strong regulator, projects can stall for reasons unrelated to physics. Siting disputes, compensation delays, weak supply chains, and poor contracts often do the damage.

Liability Isn't Lip Service

This brings us to the piece that decides whether money and vendors show up: liability. SHANTI's liability framework has moved the needle by making large-scale projects more insurable and financeable. But it still needs to be made real in practice. Annual publication of the liability fund's broad financial position, including corpus and inflows, would help build confidence that the mechanism is real.

SHANTI will be implemented in a political environment where suspicion can spread faster than facts. The answer is smart transparency: publish what can be published, protect what must be protected.

In nuclear power, foreign policy begins at home. Partners judge results. Nuclear power sits at the intersection of diplomacy, finance, safety, and national security. The world judges nuclear partners by execution. That will shape India's external engagement.

Start with the United States, where the promise has been the loudest and the delivery the thinnest. For nearly two decades, civil nuclear cooperation has been one of the most symbolic files in the relationship and one of the least delivered. The politics was big. The paperwork was heavy. The commercial follow-through was thin. No US-designed reactor has yet been built in India. SHANTI makes cooperation more executable. It is no surprise that the US has welcomed it. At the same time, SHANTI strengthens India's diplomatic leverage because it widens choice.

Even if the US file moves, India's best strategy is diversification, not dependence. Nuclear cooperation is not a one-time purchase. It creates long dependencies in fuel, upgrades, spare parts, and safety systems. More partner options reduce the risk of lock-in and strengthen India's hand. With France, a clearer liability narrative helps, but land, cost, and timelines remain decisive. With Russia, continuity is easier, but sanctions-era geopolitics will shadow financing and routing.

Diplomacy Is Important, Too

Since projects are to be led by Indian-incorporated licensees with foreign firms supplying technology, capital, and services, industry boardrooms in India and overseas will watch whether initiatives move from announcement to ground-breaking to grid connection. India's economic diplomacy will need to be ready for contract frictions, financing hurdles, and supply-chain issues as they arise.

Another channel of foreign policy is less visible but equally important: regulators talking to regulators. Regulatory diplomacy will increase. AERB will engage with international regulators and organisations, including through peer learning and joint exercises where appropriate. This is how India signals that it is operating at global standards while keeping sovereign control.

If 100 GW is the horizon, fuel diplomacy becomes strategic. Uranium supply and related services become standing foreign-policy portfolios. That means diversified arrangements, not dependence on any single external source. At the same time, it shifts dependencies from fossil fuels to uranium and high-end technology supply chains. Dependence is not eliminated. It is rearranged, making multi-energy diversification diplomacy essential.

Finally, there is a climate dividend. A credible nuclear scale-up strengthens India's argument in climate forums that it is pursuing development and decarbonisation together. But that argument is persuasive only if projects are actually delivered.

Whether SHANTI becomes a driver of real change across India's energy landscape depends on what comes next. Nuclear power has waited too long on the sidelines. The blueprint is ready. Now India must break ground and build.

(The writer was a Permanent Representative of India to the UN and now serves as Dean, Kautilya School of Public Policy)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author