December 17, 2025
Sougata Ray’s speech on The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill (SHANTI Bill), 2025
Sir, I shall be very brief. I have got only five minutes and in that five minutes, I oppose the SHANTI Bill. Sir, I oppose
this because this Bill opens up the nuclear power sector to private industry, both domestic and foreign and also their plan is to have …. Four companies are vying for this — …. They want to have a share in the nuclear pie. That is why it has been mentioned by Shri Manish before. I oppose this Bill. Sir, the Bill comes after the country has 75 years….. Sir, I have not named anybody. I have named some titles like … . Sir, that is not all my point. Sir, the Government is planning to have 100 GW by 2047 through the nuclear route. It plans to have 22,000 MW by 2032. It says that it will reduce dependency on fossil fuels. But we must also remember that nuclear energy is a risky proposition. You know about the nuclear incidents which happened in Chernobyl near Belarus, the Three Mile Island in the United States and Fukushima in Japan. You are saying that if an accident takes place, maximum liability will be $300 million.I say that this should be increased to 500 million. Why should there be such a small cap? I feel that their liability should be full. We have shortage of nuclear raw materials. As you know, all these reactors are fission reactors, that is splitting the atom. We have not developed the technology to have fusion reactors where you combine two atoms into one.
So, these fission reactors have this problem of chance of accident and one should be careful about it. They say that this is done to achieve low carbonization and zero carbon emission by 2070. But if in the process an accident takes place, then the whole purpose will be defeated. New bodies have been created like the Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board, Atomic Energy Redressal Advisory Council, and Nuclear Damage Claims Commission. It is all right to have such regulatory bodies. But basically, if you bring in the private sector and foreign investment, that will be a basic
problem in the whole nuclear sector as we do not have enough nuclear raw materials. We have some uranium mines in this country, but we know that uranium has to be put into a centrifuge so that it becomes plutonium. … Sir, it has to be put in a centrifuge. We are short of nuclear fuel. Now, we are allowing import of nuclear fuel, import of equipment, and you are also allowing private parties to construct nuclear reactors. So, the whole thing should be considered afresh. The Minister shouldsend this Bill to a Select Committee without hurrying. He should not make
haste or hurry. He should consider sending it to a Select Committee. Let us consider all these aspects and then we can decide upon it. Hence, I oppose this Bill and propose it to be referred to a Select Committee. Thank you.
