FPJ News Service mumbai

India could allow foreign companies to take a stake of up to 49% in its nuclear power plants, three government sources said, as New Delhi draws up plans to open up its most guarded sector to help achieve goals to cut carbon emissions, Reuters reports.

The finance ministry, department of atomic energy, and the prime minister’s office did not respond to Reuters’ queries. The proposals are still under consideration. The government has considered changing its nuclear foreign investment framework since 2023. The need to increase nuclear capacity, however, has become pressing as India seeks to replace carbon-intensive coal with cleaner sources of energy. Investment in the sector has the potential to spur tariff negotiations with the United States, although the officials could not say whether the issue would be linked to any trade deal.

The atomic energy department had said foreign companies including Westinghouse Electric, GE-Hitachi, Electricite de France and Rosatom were interested in participating in the country’s nuclear power projects as technology partners, suppliers, contractors and service providers. Indian conglomerates, including Reliance Industries, Tata Power, Adani Power, and Vedanta Ltd, have also held discussions with the government to invest about $26 billion in the nuclear power sector.

In 2008, a civil nuclear agreement with the United States provided for deals worth many billions of dollars with U.S. companies. The companies, however, have been deterred by the risk of unlimited exposure in the event of any accident and no foreign investment has been allowed in India's nuclear plants.

If the latest proposals go through, together with plans to ease nuclear liability laws and allow domestic private players into the sector, they could remove the impediments to government aims to expand nuclear power capacity by 12 times to 100 gigawatts by 2047. The sources said any foreign nuclear investments would still require prior government approval rather than be allowed automatically.