India projects itself as a responsible nuclear power, one with credible command-and-control systems, a strong safety culture, and mature institutional oversight. This narrative is central to India’s claims for strategic legitimacy and global leadership. Yet publicly documented incidents over the past two decades reveal a more troubling reality: recurring failures in radioactive material control, uneven regulatory enforcement, and procedural lapses that point to systemic weaknesses rather than isolated accidents. These shortcomings demand sober scrutiny rather than rhetorical reassurance.
One of the most disturbing reminders came in 2010, when a decommissioned Cobalt-60 irradiator from Delhi University was auctioned as scrap in the Mayapuri industrial area. The resulting radiation exposure caused severe injuries and at least one death. The incident exposed glaring deficiencies in inventory tracking, end-of-life management, and institutional accountability for radioactive sources. More troublingly, it was not an anomaly. Subsequent recoveries of missing Caesium-137 sources from scrap dealers across India demonstrated that radioactive materials continued to slip out of authorised custody long after Mayapuri should have prompted systemic reform.
Expanding transparency for civilian-use facilities and permitting more robust inspections would not undermine sovereignty; rather, it would reinforce credibility at a time when safety records are increasingly scrutinised.
Between 2016 and 2021, Indian law enforcement agencies seized multiple kilogram-scale quantities of natural and depleted uranium in different states. While these materials were not weapons-grade, their unauthorised circulation raises serious concerns about material accounting, security culture, and deterrence. The repetition of such cases across regions suggests not merely opportunistic crime, but deeper systemic vulnerabilities enabled by weak oversight. In many instances, recoveries occurred through chance discoveries or routine police action rather than proactive monitoring by nuclear authorities, a pattern that underscores institutional shortcomings.
Periodic arrests involving sealed radioactive sources and rare isotopes further reinforce this concern. Each case raises the same unresolved questions: how do regulated materials leave authorised custody, and why have corrective mechanisms failed to prevent recurrence? In a nuclear-armed state, the consequences of complacency are not limited to public health. They extend to strategic stability and international confidence.
That risk was starkly illustrated in March 2022, when India accidentally launched a BrahMos cruise missile during routine maintenance. Although no warhead was involved, the missile’s dual-capable nature transformed a technical failure into a strategic incident. The episode highlighted serious procedural and command-and-control vulnerabilities with potential escalation consequences in a nuclearised regional environment. It also challenged the assumption that India’s strategic safety culture is immune to human error and institutional drift.
India does possess an extensive nuclear governance architecture, including regulatory bodies, safety protocols, and export-control frameworks. However, the problem lies not in the absence of rules, but in inconsistent enforcement and limited transparency. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), for example, lacks full statutory independence and operates under the same department responsible for promoting nuclear energy. This overlap between promoter and regulator weakens both oversight credibility and public confidence, particularly as India expands its nuclear footprint.
These concerns are further sharpened by recent policy developments. In February 2025, India announced plans to open parts of its nuclear sector to private participation through reforms associated with the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) framework. While framed as an economic and technological necessity, the initiative introduces new layers of complexity into an already strained safety ecosystem. Private participation in itself is not incompatible with nuclear safety; several advanced nuclear states successfully integrate private industry under stringent regulatory oversight. The determining factor, however, is the strength and independence of the regulatory structure. Without rigorous safeguards, fragmented responsibility and diluted accountability could increase vulnerabilities related to unauthorised access, diversion, or theft of nuclear and radioactive materials.
Privatisation, if pursued, must therefore be tightly circumscribed. Participation should remain limited to clearly civilian and non-sensitive segments of the nuclear sector, with explicit exclusion of uranium enrichment, plutonium handling, fast breeder technologies, and spent-fuel reprocessing. Equally critical is the urgent need to transform the AERB into a fully independent statutory authority with enforcement powers over both public and private entities. Without such reforms, expanding the number of actors in the nuclear domain risks multiplying oversight failures rather than correcting them.
International engagement also remains a weak point. India has selectively aligned itself with global nuclear norms but continues to limit the scope of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. This debate gained renewed attention after IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi publicly praised India’s achievement in bringing the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam to criticality, describing it as “impressive progress” and reaffirming support for the “safe and secure development” of India’s nuclear programme. Yet the PFBR remains outside comprehensive IAEA safeguards. Because India retains the authority to determine which facilities are open to international inspection, the reactor is not subject to routine safeguards verification despite its strategic sensitivity.
This distinction is far from symbolic. Fast breeder reactors are specifically designed to produce more fissile material than they consume, generating plutonium that may support civilian fuel cycles but also carries direct relevance for weapons capabilities. The PFBR is therefore not merely another energy project; it is a strategically sensitive dual-use asset. Public praise for such a facility without corresponding emphasis on safeguards and transparency risks weakening the normative credibility that the global nonproliferation regime depends upon.
Expanding transparency for civilian-use facilities and permitting more robust inspections would not undermine sovereignty; rather, it would reinforce credibility at a time when safety records are increasingly scrutinised. In an era of expanding missile capabilities, doctrinal ambiguity, and growing nuclear competition in Asia, opacity amplifies risk rather than containing it.
None of this negates India’s achievements in avoiding catastrophic nuclear accidents or its legitimate energy and security requirements. But nuclear credibility is not measured by intent or branding. It rests on consistent enforcement, institutional discipline, and a demonstrable capacity to learn from failure. The persistence of material-control incidents, procedural lapses, and regulatory gaps suggests that corrective lessons have been absorbed unevenly, if at all.
India stands at a crossroads. As it seeks greater global influence and a larger nuclear role, both civilian and strategic, it must confront the gap between projected responsibility and documented performance. Strengthening inventory tracking, enforcing accountability for negligence, hardening command-and-control procedures, and embracing greater transparency are not concessions to critics; they are prerequisites for safety and stability.
The record is clear. What is required now is not rhetorical assurance, but sustained institutional reform. In nuclear governance, credibility is cumulative, and once eroded, it is far harder to rebuild than to preserve.
The writer is a freelance columnist