India’s domestic uranium production meets barely 30% of the projected demand from its fleet of PHWR reactors currently under construction. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Undertakings states this plainly in its latest report, which scrutinizes the performance of NPCIL and the responses of the Department of Atomic Energy. With future heavy water reactors expected to require around 5,400 tonnes of U₃O₈ per year, the gap between what India mines and what it will consume is set to widen unless decisive action is taken soon.
The Department of Atomic Energy’s plan calls for UCIL, the state-owned mining company under its umbrella, to double output by 2036 by expanding existing extraction capacity and opening new sites in Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. The Committee broadly welcomed this roadmap, but flagged a timing mismatch: NPCIL’s capacity additions are front-loaded into the coming decade, while UCIL’s mining expansion only reaches full maturity toward the end of that same period. Any delays in bringing new mining clusters online will prolong India’s dependence on imported fuel — and all the geopolitical vulnerability that entails.
