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Radioactive solid waste from nuclear power plants stays within 0.15 cubic metres/year/MW; no incident of radioactivity release from disposed waste has been recorded to date
Waste handling is governed by the Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 — every facility needs AERB authorisation to discharge effluents
High-level waste from spent fuel is vitrified into glass and interim-stored per IAEA guidelines; partitioning technology recovers isotopes such as Cs-137 for healthcare use
Original parent legislation under which AERB was constituted (1983) and the 1987 waste rules framed; repealed and replaced by the SHANTI Act, 2025 with effect from 21 December 2025
Sets the legal requirements for authorisation, handling, storage and disposal of radioactive waste — the operative framework cited in this July 2026 reply
Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act; repealed the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, and for the first time gives AERB full statutory status
Regulates radiation and nuclear safety; authorises effluent-discharge limits for every nuclear facility
UN body whose guidelines govern the vitrified-waste storage practices referenced in the reply
AERB was constituted on 15 November 1983 by a Government of India notification issued under Section 27 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 — not by a standalone Act of Parliament. For decades this was a classic UPSC trap: a body that regulates nuclear safety yet was not itself statutory. The SHANTI Act, 2025 changes this — it grants AERB full statutory status for the first time.
Simple Analogy: Like a traffic-police unit created by an executive order finally being written into the law itself.
High-level waste from spent-fuel reprocessing is converted to glass (vitrification) and interim-stored in a Solid Storage Surveillance Facility, per IAEA practice
Separates and recovers useful radioisotopes — Cs-137, Ru-106, Sr-90 — for healthcare applications, while cutting the volume of residual waste needing vitrification
GS Paper 3 > Science & Technology > Nuclear Energy / Environment > Waste Management
First appearance of the post-SHANTI-Act framing
Converting high-level radioactive waste into a stable glass form for safe storage
India's nuclear and radiation safety regulator, given full statutory status by the SHANTI Act, 2025