Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has placed small modular reactors at the heart of India’s economic resilience strategy. Speaking at the Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi, Sitharaman included SMRs among the concrete policy responses to emerging challenges, alongside the National Critical Mineral Mission, Rare Earth Corridors, and India Semiconductor Mission 2.0. The message is clear: nuclear energy is no longer purely an energy issue — it has become a variable of national strategic security.
The backdrop to this statement is a global economy that, in the minister’s view, has made uncertainty a structural condition. India’s response is a targeted programme. The Union Budget 2025-2026, presented by Sitharaman in February, allocated ₹20,000 crore — approximately $2.1 billion — for the research and development of indigenously designed SMRs. The goal: at least five operational reactors by 2033. The initiative also aims to open the nuclear sector to private participation, a significant policy shift in an industry that until now has been the exclusive domain of state-owned NPCIL.
In December 2025, the Indian parliament passed legislation allowing private companies to participate in the national nuclear programme for the first time, covering power generation, plant operations, and component supply. NPCIL has already issued a request for proposals for the deployment of Bharat Small Modular Reactors. The designs under consideration include the BSMR-200 and the more compact SMR-55, the latter also envisioned for high-temperature industrial applications and hydrogen production.
The long-term trajectory is ambitious. Sitharaman has set a target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, the centenary of Indian independence. Today, the country has approximately 8.78 GW of installed nuclear capacity, accounting for 3.1% of national electricity generation, with a further 5.4 GW under construction. The gap between the current base and the 2047 target makes SMRs not an ancillary option, but the backbone of any credible expansion plan. The estimated market potential for SMRs alone exceeds $20 billion over the next decade.
Opening the sector to private capital reshapes the industry’s landscape. Until now, the state held an absolute monopoly over the construction and operation of commercial nuclear plants. The new law changes this framework and could attract both capital and technology from abroad, at a time when India-US relations on civilian nuclear cooperation are gaining momentum. Sitharaman emphasised that building resilience is not a one-off exercise: it requires sustained investment in the country’s structural foundations. In this vision, SMRs are not merely generators of clean electricity — they are an infrastructure of strategic autonomy in an increasingly unpredictable international order.
