The deal as its title indicates is a Civilian Nuclear Agreement. India has presently 22 reactors. The deal permits India to separate our military and civilian reactors and place the later under an inspection regime of the IAEA. India has accordingly identified 14 reactors to be under the deal. The other 8 reactors, outside the deal, permits India's military nuclear program to continue unfettered.
When India conducted Pokhran II under the NDA regime, the US reacted by constituting the Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) which presently has 45 countries as its members. For countries to engage in nuclear transactions globally, it needed a NSG waiver. Because India did not have a NSG waiver, our nuclear program in this country began to hurt. Uranium supplies, spares etc dried up and consequently nuclear power generation capacity are operating at less than 50%. This means that the thousands of crores invested by the country is not providing full value in returns. The US is the most influential member of the NSG. Without US support, no waiver is possible. So the necessity of first striking a deal with the US, which even the Chinese have entered into.
