- Country: India
- Topic: SHANTI Rules and Regulations
- Project Stage: Regulatory framework
- Stakeholders: Department of Atomic Energy • AERB • private developers • technology vendors • investors • future owner-operators
- Reading time: 8 min
What happened?
India’s Department of Atomic Energy has released the Draft SHANTI Rules and Draft SHANTI Regulations for public consultation, with comments invited until 4 September 2026. The documents translate the SHANTI Act into a practical licensing and regulatory framework that will govern future nuclear projects. Unlike the SHANTI Act itself – which primarily established the legal possibility of broader participation in the nuclear sector – the draft documents define:
- who can apply for licences
- the capabilities applicants must demonstrate
- how licensing and regulatory reviews will proceed
- what evidence will be required before construction, fuel loading, and operation
- how safety, security, safeguards, liability, and financial capability will be assessed throughout the project lifecycle
Perhaps the most notable feature is that India is not simply opening the market, but creating a comprehensive governance framework intended to ensure that new private participants can demonstrate capabilities comparable to those expected from established nuclear operators.
Why does it matter?
Many countries publish implementation regulations after passing legislation. The SHANTI Rules go much further. Rather than only focusing on administrative procedures, they establish an integrated framework that covers:
- licensing
- owner capability
- technology acceptance
- safety
- nuclear security
- safeguards
- financing
- waste management
- decommissioning
- emergency preparedness
Rather than merely issuing licences, the Rules and Regulations, taken together, represent a roadmap for creating an entire nuclear programme.
One of the most striking features is that obtaining a licence depends not only on selecting a reactor. Applicants must also demonstrate that they have:
- financial capacity
- managerial know-how
- technical abilities
- lifetime design support
- qualified personnel
- organisational acumen
- quality management systems
- supply-chain oversight
The regulator, in effect, assesses whether the applicant is able to act as a nuclear owner before permitting the project to proceed. This moves the discussion well beyond technology selection.
Rather than issuing a single approval and allowing the project to continue independently, SHANTI introduces multiple licensing hold points. The applicant must demonstrate that they are ready before moving through each phase: construction, fuel delivery, fuel loading, commissioning, and, finally, operations.
Each milestone requires evidence that technical, financial, organisational, and contractual conditions have been satisfied. This produces a governance model resembling major international nuclear programmes rather than conventional infrastructure licensing.
Foreign reactor technologies remain eligible, but only under clearly defined conditions. Related requirements include:
- the design must already be licensed or certified by the regulator in its country of origin
- the reactor should already be operating somewhere internationally
- lifetime design support must be available
- intellectual property considerations must be secured
This substantially reduces the likelihood of first-of-a-kind, unproven commercial deployments entering India’s market.
One of the strongest features of the draft framework is that safety, security, and safeguards appear throughout the licensing process, rather than as independent compliance activities. Applicants must demonstrate security by design, safeguards by design, physical protection arrangements, security-management capability, and security-safety interfaces.
These requirements appear repeatedly across licensing stages, thereby reinforcing the principle that nuclear security must be embedded right from a project’s inception, rather than introduced along the way.
What can we learn?
Opening a market is only the start
Many governments have announced private participation. Far fewer explain how new market entrants become credible nuclear operators. India is attempting to answer this question via a structured regulatory pathway.
Owner capability becomes a regulatory issue
Historically, nuclear regulation has focused primarily on facilities. The SHANTI framework increasingly regulates the organisation behind the facility, requiring evidence that the future owner has sufficient governance, competence, and managerial know-how. This represents a change of tack that many newcomer countries may eventually have to consider.
Programme governance receives unprecedented attention
Beyond engineering, the Rules and Regulations devote significant attention to:
- organisational structure
- interface management
- contract management
- competency development
- quality management
- long-term operational capability
Tenet’s perspective
After reading both draft documents, one point stands out: most commentary has focused on private participation. In reality, the documents devote far more attention to ensuring that private participation does not weaken nuclear governance. This may ultimately become the defining characteristic of India’s new regulatory framework.
The publication of the SHANTI Rules may prove even more consequential than the SHANTI Act itself. The Act answered the political question: Who can participate in India’s nuclear sector? The Rules answer the operational question: What does an organisation need to be capable of before it can become a nuclear owner?
Perhaps the most interesting feature is that India is moving away from viewing licensing as a series of regulatory approvals. Instead, licensing becomes a mechanism for evaluating institutional readiness.
Financial strength, governance, human resources, organisational competence, supply-chain management, and long-term design support become prerequisites, not addendums. This is indicative of an important lesson observed across many nuclear programmes: most delays do not stem from reactor technology, but weaknesses in owner capabilities and programme governance.
If implemented successfully, the SHANTI framework could become one of the most comprehensive examples of integrating regulatory oversight with programme/management principles. For newcomer countries, this is particularly pertinent. The documents provide not only a licensing model, but also an implicit checklist of the institutional capabilities required before a commercial nuclear programme can be embarked upon.
How Tenet can support you
The SHANTI framework reinforces many of the areas where governments and future owner-organisations require independent support. Tenet assists clients by:
- assessing organisational readiness before licensing
- evaluating owner capabilities against international good practice
- designing governance and interface-management frameworks
- supporting procurement and technology-selection strategies
- establishing programme/management arrangements for new nuclear organisations
- identifying institutional gaps before they become project risks
- supporting governments and future owner-operators in preparing for complex regulatory and licensing processes
Planning a nuclear programme or evaluating strategic delivery options? We will be pleased to discuss your project and share our international experience in these areas with you.
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