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Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act draft rules require imported foreign nuclear tech to be certified by home regulator
India Russia
Russia’s state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom is uniquely positioned to dominate India’s emerging small modular reactor (SMR) market due to the strict “proven and operational” criteria mandated by New Delhi’s newly drafted nuclear guidelines.
The Department of Atomic Energy’s draft rules under the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act require imported foreign nuclear technology to be fully certified by its home regulator and already operational in its country of origin or another foreign nation.
This specific clause creates a major hurdle for Western competitors while leaving the door wide open for Moscow, according to the Indian Express and other reports.
The “Already Operational” Rule
The global SMR race is highly competitive, but very few designs have moved past the blueprint or certification stage. The SHANTI Act rules effectively filter the pool of eligible foreign vendors based on real-world deployment:
Russia operates the Akademik Lomonosova floating nuclear power plant running two 35 MWe modules commercially since May 2020. Rosatom is also aggressively building land-based SMRs.
While China has an operational SMR (the HTR-PM demonstration project), geopolitical tensions make any nuclear collaboration with New Delhi highly unlikely.
Prominent Western SMR developers—including NuScale (VOYGR), Rolls-Royce SMR, Holtec International, Westinghouse (AP300), and GE-Hitachi (BWRX-300)—are stuck in design certification or early licensing phases. Because none of these reactors are commercially functional yet, the new rules effectively defer their entry into India for years.
Why India is Turning to SMRs
India is targeting a massive expansion to reach 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 to feed the colossal, uninterrupted power requirements of its artificial intelligence infrastructure, semiconductor fabs, and data centres.
Traditional mega-reactors take decades to fund and build, whereas SMRs can be manufactured in factories, deployed rapidly to remote regions or industrial hubs, and offer a vastly smaller footprint.
The Cost and Relationship Edge
Beyond meeting the technical criteria of the SHANTI Act, Russia holds a financial and structural upper hand.
Capital costs represent up to 60% of the lifetime cost of nuclear energy. Russian Light Water Reactors (Rs 34 crore per MW) cost significantly less than their American or French counterparts, remaining within striking distance of India’s indigenous pressurized heavy water reactors (Rs 18 crore per MW).
Western suppliers have spent over a decade frozen out of the Indian market due to strict vendor liability rules under India’s 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act. Russia bypassed these hurdles via state-backed guarantees through its ongoing work at the Kudankulam facility in Tamil Nadu.
While India continues to pursue vendor diversification over the long term to mitigate geopolitical risks, Rosatom’s ready-to-deploy technology ensures that Moscow is positioned as the primary beneficiary of India’s clean energy pivot in the near term.
Key Questions Answered
Ask News18Western SMR developers could enter the Indian market, but new draft rules under the SHANTI Act require imported foreign nuclear technology to be certified by its home regulator and already operational in its country of origin or another foreign nation.
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At the news desk for 20 years, the story of her life has revolved around finding pun, facts while reporting, on radio, heading a daily newspaper desk, teaching mass media students to now editing speci…Read More
August 19, 2026, 7:24 PM IST
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