BARC is in talks with Reliance, Adani, NTPC and L&T to commercialise its 300 MW small nuclear reactor design under a Rs 9,000 crore plan.

The plan is to set up a special purpose vehicle, or SPV, that private companies can invest in.

This SPV would also hold the intellectual property rights to the reactor design.

The numbers give a sense of scale. Building a 300 MW unit is expected to cost around Rs 30 crore per megawatt, which works out to close to Rs 9,000 crore for one plant.

A formal request for proposal is likely soon, though nothing on ownership or investment amounts has been finalised yet.

This move fits into a much bigger goal. India wants to grow its nuclear power capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2047.

Right now, the country produces just 8.7 GW of nuclear power, most of it from older, heavy water reactors.

Small modular reactors are seen as a faster and cheaper way to add capacity.

Major parts can be built in factories and simply assembled on site, which cuts down on construction time compared to traditional large nuclear plants.

There is recent context that explains the timing. BARC and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India released a detailed project report for the BSMR-300 design on 14 August.

That report laid the technical groundwork for the private sector talks now underway. The push for private money in nuclear power also follows a law change.

Parliament passed the SHANTI Act in December 2025, which opened up nuclear power generation to private companies for the first time in India’s history.

BARC is also working on other reactor designs alongside the BSMR-300, including smaller demonstration units, as part of India’s wider Rs 20,000 crore Nuclear Energy Mission that targets at least five indigenous small modular reactors by 2033.

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