The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has released the draft Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Rules, 2026, proposing provisions on nuclear operator liability, insurance and financial security to support the expansion of nuclear power and private participation in the sector.
The draft provides for strict and no-fault liability of nuclear operators for nuclear damage, including damage occurring during the carriage of nuclear material. Operators would have to maintain insurance, financial security, or a combination of both. Where shares, bonds or other financial instruments are provided as security, these would be pledged to the Central Government and a security margin of 1:1.33 would have to be maintained. The financial protection would remain valid until all spent fuel is removed from the spent fuel storage pool after being taken out of the reactor core. The rules would cover nuclear applications including electricity generation, captive power, process heat, hydrogen and medical isotope production. Nuclear captive power is also proposed for hard-to-abate industries and emerging applications such as data centres, semiconductor manufacturing, quantum technologies and high-performance computing. Operators of licensed facilities would also have to provide financial arrangements for civil liability, spent fuel and radioactive waste management, decommissioning and site remediation. Specified Central Government-owned installations would be exempt from insurance or financial security, with the Central Government assuming liability for attributable damages.