Nuclear Technology
India's nuclear programme is a three-stage plan built around not having much uranium and having a great deal of thorium. Learn the three stages, the founder, and where Gujarat's plant sits.
Mental model
Two opposite reactions, one contrast to hold: FISSION splits a heavy nucleus (uranium, plutonium) and is what every power reactor on earth uses; FUSION joins light nuclei (hydrogen) and is what the Sun uses. Then remember India's three-stage plan as a fuel staircase — natural uranium, then plutonium, then thorium — because India's reserves are thorium-rich and uranium-poor. That one economic fact explains the entire policy.
Associations
A short trigger on the left, everything it pulls with it on the right.
Uranium, plutonium, thorium — stages one, two, three.
Stage one burns natural uranium in pressurised heavy water reactors. Stage two uses the plutonium produced there in fast breeder reactors. Stage three uses thorium, of which India has among the world's largest reserves. The whole design exists because domestic uranium is scarce.
Kakrapar is Gujarat's reactor.
The Kakrapar Atomic Power Station in Surat district is the state's nuclear plant, and is where indigenously designed pressurised heavy water reactors have been commissioned. That is the Gujarat hook GPSC uses to enter this topic.
Things to remember
The night-before list. Short enough to recall cold.
- 1Homi Jehangir Bhabha is regarded as the architect of India's nuclear programme and proposed the three-stage plan.
- 2The Atomic Energy Commission was set up in 1948 and the Department of Atomic Energy in 1954.
- 3Tarapur in Maharashtra was India's first nuclear power station; Kakrapar in Gujarat is the state's plant.
- 4India conducted a peaceful nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974 and a series of tests at the same site in 1998.
- 5Nuclear power plants are operated by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited under the Department of Atomic Energy.
- 6India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In detail
- India's three-stage nuclear programme was conceived by Homi J Bhabha: stage one pressurised heavy water reactors on natural uranium, stage two fast breeder reactors on plutonium, stage three thorium-based reactors.
- Kerala's monazite sands are India's main thorium source, which is why the third stage is built around thorium.
- India's first nuclear test, Pokhran-I, was conducted in 1974 in Rajasthan; the second series, Pokhran-II, was in 1998.
- Kakrapar in Gujarat's Tapi district hosts a nuclear power station; Tarapur in Maharashtra was India's first nuclear power station.
- India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and follows a declared No First Use nuclear doctrine.
Where people slip
- Fission splits heavy nuclei and powers reactors; fusion joins light nuclei and powers stars. Reactors run on fission.
Check yourself
Nothing here is scored — it will not change your mastery figures.
The third stage of India's nuclear power programme is based on:
From the question bank
What was the name of India's first nuclear research reactor, built in 1956?
From the question bank
Consider the following statements: 1. Nuclear fission is the splitting of a heavy nucleus into two lighter nuclei, releasing energy. 2. Nuclear fusion is the combining of light nuclei into a heavier nucleus, releasing energy. 3. Nuclear power plants in India currently use fusion reactions to generate electricity. Which of the above statements is/are correct?
Books to read
- India Year Book — Publications Division, Government of India
- Science and Technology for Civil Services — Ravi P Agrahari
- NCERT Class XII — Physics
Official sources
Hand-checked official domains only — the notes above carry no links of their own.