Centre to tap IITs, NITs for nuclear tech courses to power India's 100 GW dream

New Delhi: India's 100GW nuclear power ambitions, backed by the SHANTI Act operationalisation, has thrown up a serious manpower challenge and the Centre is set to ask IIT, NITs besides all leading technical institutes to launch a series of nuclear tech courses to ready a pool of N-skilled workforce, ET has learnt.

Plans are in the offing to set up a dedicated institute, such as an Indian Institute of Nuclear Technology, to launch N-Power specific courses, it is gathered.

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The larger idea is to train manpower across various tiers involved in nuclear power plants -- from top-end researchers and scientists to nuclear engineers besides chemical/ electrical engineers, specialists in fuel development, fuel safety, radiation, construction and regulatory and administrative functionaries as well, ET gathers.

Accordingly, PhDs to B-Tech and M-Tech apart, institutes will be encouraged to launch a bouquet of courses including certificate courses, diplomas and ITI-style courses.

Much of the architecture for this workforce development framework and a dedicated N-technology institute is being put together by an expert committee set up by Niti Aayog under JB Joshi, reputed nuclear scientist and Chancellor of the Institute of Chemical Technology.

ET gathers that the panel will soon submit its final report and a strong pitch will be made to the Education ministry, Department of Science & Technology (DST) and other scientific departments to work on course launches at the earliest possible. The workforce numbers involved explain the big push.

Governmental estimates show that generation of 1GW of nuclear power requires at least 2,000 skilled persons. NPCIL's 8-9 GW scale-up has involved near 20,000 technically skilled persons. Accordingly, India's 100 GW ambition will need a workforce of about 2.5 lakh skilled persons over the next 20 years.

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The Central Electricity Authority (CEA)'s manpower projections point to a requirement of 13,600 professionals by 2032 itself going up to over 1 lakh spread across domains from PHWR (46,460) to PWR (38,808), Bharat Small Reactors/SMRs, and FBRs.

However, currently, very few Indian institutes offer dedicated nuclear power-related courses.

While the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), NPCIL, Homi Bhabha National Institute and other units of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have been running entry-level orientation and other training programmes to meet their own requirements across the full spectrum of nuclear sector requirements, these will be inadequate amid a N-Power expansion, it is felt.

Some IITs have recently taken the lead. IIT Bombay launched a Nuclear Engineering course after the passage of the SHANTI Act. IIT Kanpur already offers B-Tech and M-Tech in nuclear science while IIT Madras has also started a summer course on the same. IIT Jammu has also been attempting N-power linked courses and IIT Gandhinagar is expected to follow suit.

Development of on-the-job training modules and orientation of current workforce spread across Indian vendors engaged in nuclear, defence, and chemical process equipment manufacturing is also under consideration, it is gathered.