Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced a ₹20,000 crore outlay for a nuclear energy mission for research and development of small modular reactors (SMR), a potentially attractive pathway to expand nuclear energy.

Sitharaman, in her budget speech, said the mission would seek to operationalise five homegrown SMRs by 2033. But scientists tracking India’s nuclear energy programme have said the 2025-26 budget outlay for atomic energy has shrunk by 3.6 per cent over the previous year’s allocation.

India currently has a total installed nuclear capacity of 8,180 megawatts but the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) aims to increase this to 22,480 MW by 2031-32. Energy experts believe India will need to rapidly expand its nuclear electricity production as part of efforts to curb fossil fuel use and pursue clean energy.

The development of at least 1,00,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2047 is “essential for energy transition efforts”, Sitharaman also said in her speech, adding that the Centre would amend the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act for “an active partnership with the private sector”.

The budget allocation for the DAE for 2025-26 is ₹24,049 crore, or about 3.6 per cent lower than ₹24,968 crore allocated for 2024-25. A senior scientist in a DAE institution said the 2025-26 budget page on DAE did not show any provision for the ₹20,000 crore research mission.

In her previous budget speech in July 2024, Sitharaman had announced the government’s intention to partner with the private sector to build SMRs. Sections of nuclear experts argued that SMRs would require strong policy support from the government.