The Union Cabinet Approved the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of India Bill

The Union Cabinet of India on 30 August 2011 cleared the Nuclear Safety And Regulatory Authority Bill 2011. The Bill envisages an Autonomous Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.  A high level panel have finalised the rules of implementation of nuclear liability law.

The Union Cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the Bill.  The bill would pave way for setting up an authority that would subsume the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). The AERB was set up in 1983 and reports to the Atomic Energy Commission.

The bill seeks to give the proposed Nuclear Regulatory Authority of India full power to stop construction work and order a shut down of an operating nuclear plant. The bill would give more powers to the country's nuclear regulator by making it a statutory body.  It is also proposed that the NRAI order cannot be challenged in a court of law. The authority is likely to include persons of eminence from engineering, environment, social, nuclear and finance areas. Significantly, the bill will have provisions to ensure that the right to information act, 2005 will not apply to certain information specified in the Act.  
 
Government has planned to increase nuclear power capacity to 63000 MW by 2032 from the present 4,780 MW.  Indian Government decided to set up NRAI in the backdrop of the Fukushima nuclear accident.