India's Nuclear Power Path | UPSC GS-3 Guide | UPSCPDF

UPSCPDF Editorial Analysis: India

Key Takeaways | Quick Facts Box — 20 Exam-Ready Points | How India Got Here — The Timeline | The Three-Stage Programme — Where India Actually Stands | Reactor Types — The Distinction UPSC Loves to Test | Constitutional & Legal Foundations | The International Frame | Comparative Models — What Other Countries Learned | Marks Breakdown | Six Dimensions — Use These to Structure Any Answer | Additional Essay Angles | Who's Who — Key Institutions | 📚 Never Miss an Editorial Again | 🇮🇳 UPSCPDF Official

Sanctions turned India into the world's cheapest reactor builder. Now, with the SHANTI Act opening the sector to private capital and imported designs back on the table, the question is whether India scales on its own technology — and whether safety culture can keep pace with a ten-fold ambition. India has set itself a target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, the centenary of independence — a more than ten-fold expansion from the present installed capacity of about 8,780 MW across 24 operating reactors, which supplies roughly 3% of the country's electricity. To get there, Parliament passed the SHANTI Act, 2025, ending the state monopoly and allowing private companies to build, own and operate nuclear power plants under licence for the first time. Against this backdrop, a widely discussed opinion piece by two former senior officials argues the expansion must be built on indigenous technology. Their claim is arithmetic: decades of sanctions forced India to design and manufacture