Select the correct statement/s from the following : A. A key highlight of the Union Budget 2025 – 26 is the launch of a Nuclear Energy Mission, which is focused on research and development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). B. To facilitate the implementation of the Nuclear Energy Mission, amendments to the Atomic Energy Act and Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act will be taken up by the Parliament. C. These Amendments are expected to encourage foreign sector investments in nuclear power projects.
- (1)Only A, B
- (2)Only B, C
- (3)Only A, C
- (4)All of the above
Correct — option (4), 'All of the above'. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat in the Union Budget 2025-26, with an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore dedicated to research and development of Small Modular Reactors, and a target of at least five indigenously developed SMRs being operationalised by 2033, feeding into a longer-term goal of 100 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047. Statement A records this correctly. To make private and foreign participation in nuclear power viable at all, the Budget speech proposed amendments to two governing laws — the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, which has historically restricted nuclear power generation to government entities, and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, whose supplier-liability provisions had long been cited by foreign reactor vendors as a deterrent to investing in India. Statement B records this correctly. Because the Civil Liability Act's supplier-liability clause is precisely what had kept international nuclear equipment suppliers — American, French and others — wary of the Indian market, amending it, alongside opening the sector envisaged under the Atomic Energy Act amendment, is specifically expected to encourage exactly the foreign investment statement C describes. All three statements accurately reflect the Budget announcement, so the correct answer credits all of them together.
- (1)Only A, B — Correctly credits the Nuclear Energy Mission's SMR focus and the proposed legislative amendments, but wrongly drops statement C. The amendments to the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act are specifically aimed at removing the liability and ownership barriers that have deterred foreign nuclear-equipment suppliers from investing in India, which is what statement C describes.
- (2)Only B, C — Correctly credits the proposed legislative amendments and their expected effect on foreign investment, but wrongly drops statement A, which accurately describes the Nuclear Energy Mission itself and its SMR focus — the announcement that the amendments in statement B were made to support in the first place.
- (3)Only A, C — Correctly credits the Nuclear Energy Mission's SMR focus and the expected boost to foreign investment, but wrongly drops statement B, which describes the actual legislative mechanism — amendments to the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act — through which that investment is meant to be enabled.
The Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat, announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, commits Rs 20,000 crore to research and development of Small Modular Reactors — compact nuclear reactors, generally under 300 MWe of capacity, designed to be more flexible, faster to build and less capital-intensive than large conventional reactors — with a target of at least five indigenously developed SMRs operational by 2033. Because India's nuclear sector has historically been closed to private and foreign participation under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, and because the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, placed liability on equipment suppliers in a way foreign vendors found unacceptably risky, the Budget proposed amending both laws as a precondition for the Mission's private and foreign-investment ambitions to be realistic.
MPSC and UPSC both track Union Budget announcements on energy and infrastructure closely, and nuclear energy has become a particularly live theme because it links three distinct policy threads at once: India's 2047 net-zero and energy-security goals, the long-standing legal barriers to private and foreign investment in nuclear power, and the specific technological bet on Small Modular Reactors as a faster, more flexible path to capacity addition than traditional large reactors. Questions of this kind test whether a candidate has connected the headline scheme (the Mission) to the legal changes needed to make it work (the Act amendments) and the intended real-world effect of those changes (foreign investment).
- The Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 with an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for research and development of Small Modular Reactors.
- The Mission targets at least five indigenously developed SMRs operational by 2033, within a broader goal of 100 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047.
- Amendments to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 were proposed to be taken up by Parliament to support the Mission.
- The Atomic Energy Act has historically restricted nuclear power generation to government-owned entities; amending it is intended to open the sector to greater private participation.
- The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act's supplier-liability provisions had long deterred foreign reactor vendors; amending it is specifically intended to make foreign investment in Indian nuclear power projects more attractive.
All three statements accurately describe the announcement — A, B and C all hold.
- Assuming a scheme announcement and its enabling legislative amendments are separate, unconnected facts, rather than recognising that the amendments exist specifically to make the scheme's stated goals achievable
- Overlooking that the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act's supplier-liability provisions, not just the Atomic Energy Act's ownership restrictions, are what have specifically deterred foreign investment in Indian nuclear power
- Treating 'private sector investment' and 'foreign sector investment' as identical, when Budget statements on this Mission generally address both the domestic-ownership barrier (Atomic Energy Act) and the foreign-supplier-liability barrier (Civil Liability Act) as distinct problems
MPSC and UPSC both favour multi-statement questions built from a single Budget announcement, testing whether a candidate has retained not just the headline scheme but the specific legislative mechanism behind it and its intended real-world effect. The defence is to read Budget-announced missions as a three-part chain — what is being launched, what legal or institutional change supports it, and what outcome that change is meant to produce — rather than as a single undifferentiated headline fact.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat, announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, targets at least how many indigenously developed Small Modular Reactors to be operationalised by 2033 ?
- (a)Two
- (b)Five
- (c)Ten
- (d)Twenty
Answer(b) Five — the Mission's target of at least five indigenously developed SMRs by 2033 feeds into the broader goal of 100 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047, backed by a Rs 20,000 crore outlay for SMR research and development.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which law's supplier-liability provisions have been a longstanding deterrent to foreign nuclear-equipment vendors investing in India, and were proposed for amendment in the Union Budget 2025-26 ?
- (a)The Atomic Energy Act, 1962
- (b)The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010
- (c)The Electricity Act, 2003
- (d)The Environment Protection Act, 1986
Answer(b) The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 — its supplier-liability clause has been a persistent concern for foreign reactor vendors. The Atomic Energy Act, 1962 is the other law proposed for amendment, but its restriction is on ownership of nuclear generation rather than supplier liability specifically.