France’s EDF pitches European Pressurised Reactors as India finalises draft rules under the SHANTI Act

The news

New Delhi, September 25. Senior officials of the Union Ministry of Power met the French government-owned utility Électricité de France (EDF) on Friday to discuss deploying its European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in India, The Indian Express reports. The Economic Times adds that Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal met Bernard Fontana, Chairman and CEO of EDF. An EPR is a large pressurised water reactor design, the family of reactors in which ordinary water under high pressure both cools the core and carries heat to a steam generator, without being allowed to boil in the core. Officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, the Central Electricity Authority, NTPC and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) also attended. According to the Power Ministry’s statement, “the discussions centred on the deployment of EPR technology, India’s regulatory reforms for the nuclear sector, cooperation on pumped hydro storage projects, and the way forward for a robust, mutually beneficial partnership.” EDF briefed Indian officials on its efforts to build an ecosystem and supply chain in India to enable large-scale localisation, and reiterated that “a sizeable programme involving multiple nuclear reactors would provide suppliers with confidence and enable economies of scale by leveraging the capabilities of Indian industry.” Mr. Agarwal, in turn, briefed the French side on progress in finalising the regulatory framework, including the draft SHANTI (Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India) Rules and Regulations, which the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) placed in the public domain last month for stakeholder consultation. The Indian Express says these drafts lay out the framework for a wider nuclear power ecosystem, covering private participation, captive nuclear generation (a plant built by an industrial user to supply its own electricity), foreign reactor technology, licensing, safety oversight and nuclear liability. India has “recently opened up its tightly-regulated civil nuclear sector for private players”, renewing interest among nuclear majors from France, the U.S. and Russia. New since this magazine’s September 21 card on RAPP-8 is the commercial side: a foreign vendor now negotiates against a draft rulebook under the new law. Per PRS Legislative Research, the SHANTI Bill, 2025 repealed and replaced both the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010; per a PIB release, the Rajya Sabha passed it on December 18, 2025, after the Lok Sabha. The syllabus link is GS3 on energy infrastructure and indigenisation of technology, and GS2 on India–France relations.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The SHANTI Act replaced two laws and ended the government monopoly on running reactors. Per the PRS summary of the Bill, the SHANTI Act repeals the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 (CLNDA) and consolidates both into one statute. The Central government may now license any company incorporated in India, and joint ventures between government entities and private companies, to build, own or operate nuclear plants and to fabricate, transport, trade or store nuclear fuel; companies incorporated outside India are excluded. Mining of atomic minerals and production and trade of specified atomic substances remain with the Central government and its companies. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), earlier created by an executive order under the 1962 Act, gets statutory status, with a chairperson, one whole-time member and up to seven part-time members chosen on the advice of a search-cum-selection committee.
2. The CLNDA’s Section 17(b) was the reason foreign vendors stayed away. The CLNDA, 2010 channelled liability for a nuclear accident to the operator on a no-fault basis, capped the operator’s liability at ₹1,500 crore for reactors of 10 MW thermal and above, and left the balance to the Central government. Its Section 17(b) went further than international practice by giving the operator a right of recourse against the supplier if the accident resulted from equipment or material with patent or latent defects, or sub-standard services. Section 46 also left room for claims under other laws, including tort law. Vendors from the United States, France and Japan argued that this exposed them to unlimited and uninsurable risk. Per PRS, the SHANTI Act removes recourse against suppliers for defective equipment or materials, keeping it only where a contract provides for it or where damage results from a deliberate act, and replaces the flat cap with graded caps of ₹100 crore to ₹3,000 crore depending on plant capacity.
3. India joined the global liability convention in 2016 and the SHANTI Act moves closer to it. The Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC), adopted under the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1997, creates a common framework in which operators bear exclusive liability and an international fund tops up compensation beyond national limits. India signed the CSC in 2010 and ratified it in February 2016, after issuing a memorandum arguing that Section 17(b) was compatible with it. The CSC’s model channels liability to the operator and permits recourse against suppliers only where a contract says so or where damage results from an intentional act, which is the position the SHANTI Act now adopts. The new law also extends compensation, subject to conditions, to damage in a foreign state caused by an incident in India.
4. Jaitapur and the three-stage programme frame what an EPR fleet would mean. The Jaitapur project in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra was planned as six EPRs of about 1,650 MW each, which would make it the largest nuclear site in the world; it followed the India–France civil nuclear cooperation agreement of 2008 and has not reached construction. NPCIL, a public sector enterprise under the DAE, operates India’s power reactors, most of them Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) that use natural uranium. India’s three-stage programme, conceived by Homi Bhabha, moves from PHWRs to fast breeder reactors that breed plutonium and then to thorium-based reactors, because India has limited uranium and large thorium reserves. Imported light water reactors such as EPRs and the Russian VVERs at Kudankulam sit outside this sequence and add capacity quickly, while indigenous 220 MW Bharat Small Reactors and Small Modular Reactors are meant for captive industrial use.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS3 asks about energy security and the growth of nuclear power. UPSC has asked candidates to discuss the need for nuclear energy in India’s energy mix and the concerns over safety and cost. The SHANTI Act and a foreign vendor’s pitch give a current case for the supply side: capacity will come only if liability, private capital and localisation line up. Per the Minister of State Jitendra Singh in the Rajya Sabha, as reported by PIB, India has nearly 9 GW of nuclear capacity against a target of 100 GW by 2047.
2. Prelims repeatedly tests nuclear institutions and conventions. Questions have covered the IAEA safeguards, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the fuel used in different reactor types. The statutory AERB, the CSC and the difference between PHWRs and light water reactors are natural Prelims targets now that the law has changed. The distinction between operator and supplier liability is exactly the kind of definitional point the paper likes.
3. GS2 treats France as India’s most consistent strategic partner. India–France relations are usually examined through defence, space and civil nuclear cooperation. An answer on the partnership can use Jaitapur as the test case of whether the 2008 agreement delivers electricity, not just diplomatic goodwill.

Analysis

1. The liability fix was necessary but EDF has now named the next price: a fleet order. For fifteen years foreign vendors cited Section 17(b) as the obstacle; the SHANTI Act removes it, and the vendors are back within months. But EDF’s message on Friday was not about liability at all. It said a “sizeable programme involving multiple nuclear reactors” would give suppliers confidence, which is a request for a committed multi-unit order before it builds an Indian supply chain. That shifts the risk from the vendor’s balance sheet to India’s planning: if the government commits to a fleet and costs overrun, Indian consumers pay. The counter-view is that no reactor has ever been built cheaply as a one-off, and serial construction of one design is how France itself brought costs down in the 1970s and 1980s.
2. Removing supplier recourse transfers risk to the public purse, not away from it. The CLNDA’s supplier clause was a lesson drawn from Bhopal, where the victims’ struggle for compensation from a foreign company lasted decades. Under the new law the operator is liable up to a graded cap and the Central government pays the rest, while the supplier is liable only if the contract or a deliberate act makes it so. This is the international norm and it is insurable, which is why it attracts vendors. It also means that a design defect in an imported reactor will be paid for by Indian taxpayers beyond the operator’s cap. Whether the graded caps of ₹100 crore to ₹3,000 crore are adequate for a large plant such as an EPR is a legitimate question for the rules now under consultation.
3. The EPR’s own record is the strongest argument for caution. The EPR is one of the most powerful reactor designs in service, but its first-of-a-kind builds in Europe, at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France, ran years late and far over budget. The units in China were quicker, which suggests that the problem lay in lost construction skills and first-of-a-kind engineering rather than in the design itself. India’s own PHWR fleet programme, which NPCIL now builds in batches, is a cheaper and more predictable way to add capacity. The case for EPRs is speed at scale: one large unit adds more capacity than several indigenous units, and India needs a steep ramp to approach its 2047 target.
4. Localisation is the real prize and it depends on India’s private industry. EDF spoke of large-scale localisation and of leveraging Indian industry. That can only work if Indian forgings, pumps, valves and control systems meet nuclear-grade quality standards, which few firms outside the DAE’s traditional supplier base currently do. The SHANTI Act’s opening to private operators matters here, because a larger market of buyers gives component makers the volume to invest. If the rules allow captive nuclear generation for industries, demand for smaller reactors could build that supplier base faster than a handful of mega-projects. The two tracks, imported large reactors and indigenous small ones, should be seen as complementary rather than competing.
5. The rule-making stage will decide whether the reform is credible. An Act sets principles; the draft rules on licensing, safety oversight and liability decide how long a project waits and who bears which risk. A statutory AERB is an improvement, but its members are still appointed by the Central government, which also owns NPCIL, and the regulator’s independence will be judged by how it treats a government operator’s application. Stakeholder consultation is an opportunity for States hosting plants, local communities and independent experts to be heard. A regulator seen as captured would damage public trust in exactly the areas, such as Ratnagiri, where earlier protests stalled projects.

Administrator's brainstorm