The Government of India ratified the
Convention on Nuclear Safety on March 31, 2005. The Objectives of the Convention are to achieve and maintain a high level of nuclear safety worldwide, to establish and maintain effective defenses in nuclear installations against potential radiological hazards, in order to protect individuals, society and the environment from harmful effects of ionizing radiation from such installations; and to prevent accidents with radiological consequences and to mitigate such consequences, should they occur.
The Convention places certain obligations on the States operating nuclear power plants. The obligations are based on the principles contained in the IAEA Safety Fundamentals document "Fundamental Safety Principles (SF-1)" and cover for instance, siting, design, construction, operation, the availability of adequate financial and human resources, the assessment and verification of safety, quality assurance and emergency preparedness.
The Convention has a peer review process, wherein the Contracting Parties are required to submit national reports on the implementation of their obligations for "peer review" at the meetings of the Contracting Parties, to be held at the IAEA. These review meetings are held once every three years. The national reports are to be prepared following specified guidelines and should be submitted about nine months ahead of the Review Meeting, for review by other Contracting Parties. Based review, questions are posed on the national reports by other Contracting Parties, for which the answers are to be provided within the specified deadline before the Review Meetings. Further, the Contracting Parties are required to present their own national reports and also peer review the national reports of other Contracting Parties, during the Review Meeting, which extends over two weeks. Based on the peer review, a Country Review Report is prepared (introduced for the first time in the 7th Review Meeting), which is further considered in the Plenary session of the Review Meeting for preparation of the Summary Report of the Review Meeting. As per the guidelines and rules of the Convention, the Summary Reports of the review meetings are publicly available. Making the other reports of the Convention pertaining to the respective countries public is the prerogative of the individual governments.
India submitted its first national report for the Convention for the 4th Review Meeting in 2008. Subsequently national reports were submitted for the 5th Review meeting in 2011, 6th Review Meeting in 2014 and 7th Review Meeting in 2017. India submitted its national report for 8th Review Cycle in August, 2019. Apart from these India also submitted a national report for the 2nd Extra-ordinary meeting held in August 2012.