Maharashtra on Tuesday signed memorandums of understanding with Reliance Industries, Adani Power, NTPC and Bajaj Group-backed Lalitpur Power Generation Company to attract ₹6.5 lakh crore of investment in nuclear energy, outlining plans to develop 25,400 MW of capacity — nearly three times India’s existing operational atomic power fleet of about 8,800 MW.
Bigger Than India’s Current Fleet
The scale of the proposal is unprecedented. India has spent more than five decades building a nuclear fleet of roughly 8,780–8,880 MW across 24–25 operating reactors. Maharashtra’s newly signed agreements, if executed, would add capacity almost three times that of the national base and exceed the Centre’s target of reaching 22,000 MW of nuclear capacity by 2031–32.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who presided over the signing ceremony at Mantralaya, said the investments would support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of making India an energy-rich nation while advancing the country’s zero-carbon ambitions.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a goal of making India an energy-rich nation while achieving zero-carbon growth. Maharashtra is making every possible effort to contribute to this objective, and these investments will strengthen both the State’s power capacity and its clean-energy leadership,” Fadnavis said.
Corporate Build-Out
The investment pipeline includes Reliance Industries’ proposed ₹2 lakh crore commitment to build 7,200 MW of capacity, NTPC’s ₹1 lakh crore plan for another 7,200 MW, Adani Power’s ₹1.5 lakh crore proposal for 6,000 MW, and Lalitpur Power Generation Company Ltd, part of the Bajaj Group, which has outlined a ₹2 lakh crore investment to set up 5,000 MW.
Together, the projects are expected to create around 1.23 lakh jobs, including more than one lakh linked to Reliance’s proposed deployment of Bharat Small Reactors and other advanced nuclear technologies at Purnagad in the Ratnagiri district.
Industrial Infra Play
To appreciate the scale, the proposed 25,400 MW is more than twice the size of Jaitapur, India’s largest planned nuclear project, and would account for more than one-fourth of the country’s long-term ambition of achieving 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047.
“This is not merely a power-generation proposal. It is a long-term industrial infrastructure strategy to secure reliable, round-the-clock clean electricity for Maharashtra’s manufacturing clusters, data centres and future digital economy,” a senior state energy official said.
At an estimated cost of about ₹25.6 crore per megawatt, the investment intensity is broadly consistent with the capital requirements of large-scale nuclear and emerging small modular reactor technologies.
Coal Displacement Potential
If all the proposed plants operate at a typical nuclear capacity factor of around 90 per cent, they could generate nearly 200 billion units of electricity annually, equivalent to roughly one-tenth of India’s current yearly power consumption.
That output could also displace an estimated 100–125 million tonnes of coal each year, helping reduce dependence on fossil fuels and insulating industrial growth from coal supply bottlenecks and volatile import prices.
Long Road to Execution
Despite the scale of the announcement, the projects remain at the memorandum stage. They will require extensive regulatory approvals, environmental clearances, site evaluations and final technology choices before construction can begin.
Based on India’s historical experience, analysts say commercial electricity from these projects is unlikely before 2033–34, even if approvals are expedited, and modular reactor technologies are deployed.