The SHANTI Act, 2025 is a comprehensive Act of the Indian Parliament, officially titled the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, 2025. It was created to overhaul India's nuclear energy laws and received Presidential assent on December 20, 2025. The Act was introduced to solve the problem of an outdated legal framework that restricted private and foreign investment, which was necessary to meet India's goal of achieving 100 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047 and its net-zero carbon emissions target by 2070.
The Act works by repealing and replacing two key pieces of legislation: the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLND Act), 2010. Its key mechanism is enabling limited participation by private Indian companies, joint ventures, and foreign entities in building, owning, and operating nuclear power plants for the first time since Independence. However, the Central Government retains exclusive control over sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle activities, such as uranium enrichment, heavy water production, and spent fuel management. The Act grants statutory status to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which was previously constituted in 1983 under the repealed Atomic Energy Act, 1962, to strengthen regulatory independence. The Act also introduces a revised nuclear liability framework by removing supplier liability and capping operator liability based on the plant's capacity, aligning India's regime with international nuclear liability conventions. Operator liability is capped with graded limits, such as ₹3,000 crore for large plants, and the government bears the residual liability beyond the cap through a Nuclear Liability Fund (NLF). The Act connects to India's Three-Stage Nuclear Power Programme and the broader goal of energy security.