TATA Consulting Engineers Managing Director and CEO Amit Sharma has urged the Department of Atomic Energy to emulate the Indian Space Research Organisation by opening up the nuclear energy sector entirely to private enterprise.

He argued that the Department of Atomic Energy was created for national strategic goals rather than commercial electricity generation. In his view, it should retain its strategic identity and hand over nuclear power production completely to private companies.

Sharma emphasised that state-run laboratories such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai should open their testing facilities to private concepts. He pointed out that this would mirror global practices already in place in countries such as the United States, China and South Korea, where private firms are given access to government infrastructure to accelerate innovation and deployment.

He noted that the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act has successfully ignited private sector curiosity after decades of restrictions on non-state enterprises.

The Act has created a new framework that allows private players to explore opportunities in nuclear energy, something that was previously tightly controlled by the government.

Buoyed by these regulatory shifts and the upcoming opportunities, TATA Consulting Engineers expects its own nuclear-power-related engineering revenues to treble by FY30. This projection reflects the company’s confidence in the emerging nuclear ecosystem and the potential for private enterprise to play a decisive role in India’s energy future.

The wider context is that India is seeking to expand its nuclear capacity significantly, with targets of 100 GW by 2047. Private participation is seen as essential to achieving this scale, particularly in areas such as small modular reactors, hydrogen production and advanced reactor technologies.

Sharma’s pitch aligns with the government’s broader ambition to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate clean energy adoption.

PTI