India has reserves of thorium in sufficient quantity as compared to other parts of world.

The Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has so far established 11.93 million tonnes of in situ resources Monazite (Thorium bearing mineral) in the country, which contains about 1.07 million tonnes of thorium. The state-wise resources of in situ monazite established by AMD as of September 2014 are as follows:

             Both Uranium and Thorium have got distinctive characteristics governing their utilisation in nuclear reactors. Unlike uranium, thorium alone cannot be directly used as nuclear fuel in a reactor.  Utilisation of Thorium with either uranium or plutonium, without going through the second stage of Fast Breeder Reactors, to build sufficient inventory of plutonium first, will be counter-productive by limiting thorium utilisation to a very small fraction of the total available resources in the country. Utilisation of Thorium in the third stage makes it available as a sustainable energy resource for centuries. With this mode of utilisation, Thorium offers not only a sustainable energy resource, but also excellent fuel performance characteristic in a reactor, better than Uranium with respect to lower inventory of long lived nuclear waste.

                        The three stage Indian nuclear programme was formulated at the inception of the DAE and has as its main stay objective of utilisation of large resources of Thorium in a sustainable manner. As explained above, Thorium cannot be used for overcoming power crisis in the short term.   

             This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions and in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

ST/jk