Ajit Kumar Mohanty, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, starts concreting work on two units of the Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant in Karwar on March 1, 2026. Photo credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), according to chairman Ajit Kumar Mohanty, is formulating safety norms and other rules to allow private players to generate nuclear power.
“Earlier, only government and public sector enterprises used to produce nuclear power. Now, the government has allowed companies and private institutions to produce nuclear power. We are formulating safety standards for such enterprises,” said Dr. Mohanty to reporters in Karwar on March 1.
He said the country aims to generate 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2047, for which NPCL has a target of generating 54 gigawatts.
“To streamline and regulate energy players, the government has introduced the ‘Sustainable Use and Progress of Atomic Energy for India Bill, 2025’. The safety standards that will be set will be the same as those followed by NPCL. Private players will have to get permission to set up nuclear units from the relevant authorities. They can operate the units after receiving safety clearance. Some companies have already shown interest in such ventures.
“The PHW (Pressurized Heavy Water) reactor units being built in the country, including those at the center of the Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant, have been completely developed using indigenous technologies. These are part of the steps being taken towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat. They are safer and cheaper,” he said. “The fifth and sixth units of Kaiga were technologically advanced, 700 MW PHWR power centers. They are being built using the safest technology in the world. Three more such units are already operational in Gujarat and Rajasthan. At present, the four Kaiga units are producing 880 megawatts. With the two new units, the capacity will increase to 2,280 megawatts,” he said.
“An experiment is going on to produce nuclear power through small modular units of 55 to 200 megawatt capacity. This experiment has been done at Bhabha Atomic Research Center. The experimental unit is being investigated at Tarapur in Maharashtra. This technology has been used by Rosatom in Russia. Now India will be the second country to use this technology,” he said.
“Experimental use of fast breeder reactor technology is also being carried out. At present, most of the power plants are run using uranium. But in the new technology, uranium is extracted naturally from thorium. Electricity is generated using liquid sodium instead of water. Such a unit has been built in Kalpakam, Tamil Nadu. The power generation experiment will be carried out in two months,” he said.
NPCL chairman Bhuvan Chandra Pathak said that no proposal for setting up a new nuclear power plant in Karnataka has been placed before NPCL. “There is a plan to build more units in existing nuclear power plants where space is available,” he said.
Kaiga plant director B. Vinod Kumar said the unit has 1,358 permanent employees, of which 805 are from Karnataka. “Among them are 407 employees from Uttara Kannada district. Local residents were invited to apply for training for the recruitment test for Block 5 and 6 vacancies. Around 3,000 persons applied but only 180 candidates attended the training,” he said.
He said conducting recruitment tests in Karwar was difficult as there was no facility with more than 100 computers to organize online tests. Such tests were being conducted in other districts, he said.
Published – March 2, 2026 09:57 IST
