AERB

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) was constituted on 15 November 1983 by the President of India under Section 27 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, which empowers the Central Government to make rules for radiation protection and safe disposal of radioactive substances. Its statutory mandate derives chiefly from the Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules, 2004, and the Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987, and it discharges the safety and regulatory functions delegated to it by the Atomic Energy Commission. The Board reports to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which in turn reports to the Prime Minister, and it is supported technically by the Safety Review Committee for Operating Plants (SARCOP) and the Advisory Committees for Project Safety Review (ACPSR).

AERB's core function is to ensure that the use of ionising radiation and nuclear energy in India does not cause undue risk to health and the environment. It exercises this through a multi-stage licensing regime: it grants consents at successive stages — siting, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning — for nuclear power plants, research reactors, fuel-cycle facilities, and radiation installations such as medical (radiotherapy, diagnostic X-ray), industrial and research units. It frames safety codes, guides and standards; conducts regulatory inspections; enforces compliance through powers to suspend or revoke licences; and reviews radiological emergency-preparedness plans. It also administers the eLORA (e-Licensing of Radiation Applications) online system for nationwide regulation of radiation sources, and oversees the national Decommissioning and radioactive-waste safety framework.

A persistent structural criticism is that the AERB lacks genuine independence: it was created by executive order rather than its own statute, and it remains administratively and financially dependent on the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), whose facilities it regulates — a conflict the 2011 CAG performance audit (Report No. 9 of 2012) sharply flagged. Following the Fukushima accident of March 2011, the Government introduced the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill, 2011, to replace AERB with an independent statutory authority compliant with IAEA Convention on Nuclear Safety norms; that Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha and, as of 2026, AERB continues to function under the 1983 order while the NSRA remains unenacted. India is a party to the Convention on Nuclear Safety (1994) and AERB serves as the national regulatory interface with the IAEA.

For the UPSC examination, AERB recurs in the General Studies Paper III Science & Technology segment (nuclear energy, indigenous reactor programme, three-stage programme) and intersects with GS-II questions on regulatory autonomy and the separation of operator from regulator. Prelims questions test its parent statute (Atomic Energy Act, 1962), its year of formation (1983), and its reporting line to the AEC rather than the Ministry. Mains answers should pair AERB with the NSRA Bill debate and the CAG critique to argue for regulatory independence — a standard "governance reform" angle that examiners reward when candidates connect institutional design to the credibility of India's civilian nuclear expansion.