Indian government mulls expanding Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor programme with industry partners

Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (BHAVINI), a Government of India Enterprise under the country's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), organised an Industry Partnership Conclave for Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) Expansion. This comes months after India's 500 Megawatt Prototype Fast BreederReactor(PFBR) at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, successfully attained first criticality, in April 2026. Simply put, first criticality is the start of controlled fission chain reaction.

The event brought together senior representatives from leading public and private sector industries, technology partners, equipment manufacturers, and engineering organisations. Key stakeholders associated with the Indian nuclear power programme gathered to forge collaborative partnership and build a robust roadmap for the next phase of India’s nuclear energy growth.

Speaking at the event, P.A. Suresh Babu, Chairman & Managing Director of BHAVINI expressed deep gratitude to the industrial partners for their contributions to the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). Drawing from his extensive experience with India's Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) fleet and the VVER(Soviet-origin Water-Water Energetic Reactor) programme that is operational at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, the CMD highlighted how Indian industries transformed the nuclear sector. He emphasized that a similar partnership-driven approach is vital to expand the FBR programme and achieve long-term energy security, sustainable development and making the best use of the nation's nuclear fuel resources.

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Domain experts explored new opportunities arising from the planned growth of Fast Breeder Reactors, such as: manufacturing critical systems and equipment locally to reduce foreign reliance, enhancing manufacturing capabilities and enforcing strict quality assurance, creating a sustainable ecosystem for private and public industries in the nuclear sector.

What is India's three-stage Nuclear programme?

India’s 3-stage nuclear programme is a sequential strategy to convert uranium into plutonium and finally utilize thorium for generating sustainable nuclear energy.

In the first stage, Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) use natural Uranium to generate electricity and produce Plutonium-239 as a by-product. At present, India has about two dozen PHWR Nuclear power plants, which contribute about 3percent of India's total power generation.

The second stage employs Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), which use Plutonium(by-product from first stage) to generate more fissile material, while converting thorium into Uranium-233.

In the third stage, advanced reactors utilize Uranium-233 along with Thorium to produce sustainable nuclear energy.

In simple terms, India's Fast Breeder Reactors technology forms the vital bridge between the current fleet of pressurized heavy water reactors and the future deployment of Thorium-based reactors.

This long-term strategy is particularly suited to India, which possesses minimal Uranium reserves, but one of the world’s largest Thorium reserves. While the first stage is fully operational, the second stage has just begun and had a long way to go, while the third stage remains in the research phase.

India's goal to expand Nuclear power generation capacity

At present, India has the capacity to generate about 8,780 Megawatt of Nuclear energy from over two dozen facilities across the country. India's Nuclear power generation capacity is expected to increase to 22,380 MW by 2031-32 on progressive completion of projects under implementation, as per Government data.