Energy: Power Made in India

The plan

1. Government fleet. From day 30, ministries, PSUs, police and state governments buy or lease only EVs. Old vehicles are replaced at end of life or within 12 months, whichever comes first.
2. Buses. Every new city and state bus is electric, run on per-km contracts: a private operator owns and runs the bus, and the state pays per verified km. Any operator that passes the open e-bus spec and certification test can serve any city at the published rate per km (Aadhaar playbook; How the government buys). Routes go first come first served within district quotas; payment within 30 days; de-certification within 7 days on a failed audit. Target: 50,000 e-buses ordered in 12 months.
3. Taxis and three-wheelers. From month 6, only EVs can be newly registered as taxis, ride-hailing cars or auto-rickshaws. This is a rule of the vehicle register and the one Business ID, not a permit (No licence raj).
4. New private sales: a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) quota. Each maker sells a rising share of EVs or buys credits from makers who beat the quota. Two-wheelers step up 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% by quarter. Cars and trucks rise 10 points a quarter. Motors that use no imported rare-earth magnets count double.
5. Retrofit loans. Any owner converting a petrol two-wheeler or auto under 8 years old with a certified kit can get a bank loan at market rate with a government guarantee, repaid from fuel savings. No interest subsidy.
6. Highway chargers. One fast-charging site on each side of every national highway every 25 km. Each site goes to the first certified operator that posts the bond, at a site fee set by the national rate card (How the government buys). Sites are packaged one busy with three quiet, so no top-up is needed.
7. Nuclear 100x. A Nuclear 100x Act sets the target in law: from 8.78 GW to about 880 GW.
   • Standard fleet. Only 3 certified designs are built: the 700 MW PHWR, the 220 MW Bharat Small Reactor and one certified large light-water design. A design is approved once; each repeat unit needs only a 90-day site review.
   • Orders. 100 GW is ordered within 1 year. Any certified consortium builds at a published price per MW, posts the bond upfront and is paid per inspected milestone. The company that owns and runs each reactor is 100% Indian (Sovereignty first, Tier 1); foreign firms join as suppliers and licensors of designs and parts. Startups enter through a small and micro reactor track with a national test site and a guaranteed first order once AERB certifies a design. There is no turnover or experience threshold.
   • Sites. About 300 sites are reserved in year 1, starting with retiring coal plants, which already have land, water and grid lines.
   • Supply chain. Forging, pressure-vessel and steam-generator plants get ready plots and same-day registration, to reach 40 GW a year of component output.
   • Fuel. A 2-year uranium stockpile, long-term contracts, overseas mine stakes held by NPCIL and KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Limited) on commercial terms, and fast-breeder and thorium reactors ordered once the Kalpakkam fast breeder runs at full power.
   • People and safety. AERB becomes an independent statutory regulator with 10 times its staff. 50 nuclear training centres train 1 lakh technicians and engineers a year. A deep geological waste repository site is chosen in year 1.
8. Open power market. Pass the Electricity (Amendment) Bill so several discoms can sell over one shared wire network. States that privatise or franchise loss-making discoms get extra borrowing room of 0.5% of their GSDP.

Cost and return

• Oil saved (estimate): road fuel ≈ 40 Mt petrol + 70% of 91.4 Mt diesel ≈ 104 Mt. Every 10% replaced saves 10.4 Mt ≈ 76 million barrels ≈ ₹53,900 crore ($5.7 billion) a year at $75 (₹7,090) a barrel.
• Buses and highway chargers (estimate):

• Charger grid lines: the existing ₹2,000 crore PM E-DRIVE charger fund pays only for the public grid line up to each site, which stays part of the shared network and open to every operator; the chargers themselves get no subsidy.
• Batteries (estimate): two-wheeler sales ≈ 2.2 crore a year (25.5 lakh EVs × 58% two-wheelers ÷ 6.6%). All electric × 3 kWh ≈ 66 GWh of cells, ≈ ₹59,000 crore at ₹9,000 a kWh, imported at the single 5% duty at first. A 3 kWh pack (about ₹27,000) replaces about 250 litres of petrol a year, about ₹9,600 of crude, so it repays its import cost in about 3 years. Cell factories on ready plots cut imports from year 2.
• Nuclear (estimate): 880 GW × ₹12 crore per MW (fleet price; today's 700 MW PHWR fleet costs about ₹15 crore per MW) ≈ ₹105 lakh crore ($1.1 trillion) over about 25 years, about ₹4 to 5 lakh crore a year. Year 1: 100 GW of contracts ≈ ₹12 lakh crore, with about 10% (₹1.2 lakh crore) spent on design, sites and long-lead forgings. Private consortia finance it against 40-year tariffs set by CERC. The budget pays only the existing ₹20,000 crore Nuclear Energy Mission for design work.
• Nuclear output (estimate): 880 GW × 85% × 8,760 hours ≈ 6,500 TWh a year, about 3.5 times India's power use today: enough to replace all coal power and run EVs, green hydrogen, desalination and data centres.
• Fuel-tax effect (estimate): about 3% of road fuel is replaced in year 1, reducing the central part of the Chapter 1 fuel levy by about ₹10,000 crore (3% × ₹3.3 lakh crore) and the states' part by about ₹9,000 crore (3% × ₹3 lakh crore). The central fall rises by ₹25,000 to 35,000 crore a year after that. Both are covered by the Chapter 20 overrun savings (about ₹57,000 crore a year), and Chapter 1's levy forecast falls by the measured amount each year.

Timeline

First 30 days:

• Notify the EV-only rule for central ministries and PSUs; publish the government fleet count by ministry, age and fuel.
• Publish the e-bus spec, certification test and per-km rate; states order the first 25,000 e-buses from certified operators. Publish the draft ZEV quota rules.
• Publish the 11,700 highway charger sites on a map and open them to certified operators.
• Introduce the Nuclear 100x Act and the AERB independence bill. Issue the call for the first 100 GW across the 3 designs at a published price per MW.

Within 1 year:

• 50,000 e-buses ordered and 20,000 running.
• All new taxi, ride-hailing and three-wheeler registrations electric.
• Two-wheeler ZEV quota at 100% (subject to the supply brake); car quota at about 40%.
• 11,700 highway sites live at 97% uptime.
• Nuclear: Act passed; 100 GW of contracts signed; 300 sites reserved; first concrete poured at the 10 reactor sites (7 GW) already in pre-project work; site consents for the first coal-plant sites.
• Electricity (Amendment) Act passed; at least 5 states with private or franchised discoms.

Outcomes after year 1: small reactors take 5 to 7 years from first concrete to power, so new nuclear electricity flows from about year 6. At 40 GW a year after that, 880 GW is reached in about 25 years. Cars and trucks reach 100% electric after year 1 as the quota keeps rising 10 points a quarter.

Guardrails

• Chargers: below 97% uptime in a month costs ₹10,000 per site per day. Below 90% for 3 months, the site passes to the next certified operator. Public chargers buy at least 50% renewable power by month 12.
• ZEV quota: ₹50,000 per missing car and ₹5,000 per missing two-wheeler, doubling each quarter a maker stays short, paid into the charging fund; 50% is refunded for each EV sold above quota in the next quarter. Credits count on registration date, so a pre-quota rush costs credits too.
• Supply brake: if national electric two-wheeler output at month 9 is below 70% of monthly demand, the month-12 step holds at 75% for one quarter, then resumes.
• Bus payments: operators are paid within 30 days from the payment-security fund; a state that pays late loses the same amount from its central transfers.
• Retrofit guarantee: capped at ₹5,000 crore; EMIs equal 70% of the measured fuel saving.
• Reactors: no deadline on safety. AERB rules on a new design within 180 days and on each repeat unit within 90 days, publishing every ruling within 7 days. A consortium 90 days late on a milestone loses its bond and the unit passes to the next certified builder. Operators carry insurance up to the SHANTI Act liability cap, backed by a government pool; every safety report is public.
• Discoms: one cost-based tariff for every consumer within 12 months, in 4 equal quarterly steps, with each new bill shown 30 days ahead. Households under the Chapter 23 income line get the Chapter 23 transfer. Private discoms cut AT&C loss by 5 points in 12 months, or their supply area passes to the next certified operator, as with every network service (Chapter 12).
• Battery safety: all packs pass AIS-156 testing; any recall is reported within 48 hours.
• European bar for vehicles: every new vehicle type meets the EU Euro 7 standard (Regulation (EU) 2024/1257) within 1 year, including its brake-particle limits and minimum battery-durability rule for electric cars. Where Indian rules still trail Euro 7, the gap is published every year with the date it closes.

Limits to know

No new nuclear electricity can flow within 1 year, and fuel is the hard limit: 880 GW of today's reactors would need about 1.4 lakh tonnes of uranium a year, more than twice world mine output (60,213 tonnes in 2024). The first third can run on bought and stockpiled uranium; the rest depends on fast-breeder and thorium reactors. Discom privatisation needs each state's consent because electricity distribution is a state matter; the Centre offers states extra borrowing room to do it (item 8).

Sources: Crude import bill FY25, Construction World · Petrol and diesel FY25, Outlook Business · EV sales FY26, EVreporter · EV segment shares FY26, JMK Research · 14,329 electric buses, IANS · Charging network mid-2026, MeraEV · PM E-DRIVE chargers, News on AIR · Nuclear 8,780 MW and Nuclear Energy Mission, KNN · 505 GW installed, IANS · SHANTI Act, Powerline · Discom profit FY25, Free Press Journal · Draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2025, PRS · World uranium production, World Nuclear Association · Shenzhen e-bus fleet, WRI · Norway 2025 EV share, Hydrocarbon Processing · Nuclear power in France and the Messmer plan · Tata Power Delhi turnaround, World Bank · National highways 1,46,560 km, IANS · European Parliament: Euro 7 deal on road transport emissions · Electrive: UK adopts EU Euro 7 battery lifespan rules