The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is India’s premier nuclear research facility, headquartered in Trombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by Homi Jehangir Bhabha as the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) in January 1954 as a multidisciplinary research program essential for India’s nuclear program. It operates under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India.

BARC is a multi-disciplinary research centre with extensive infrastructure for advanced research and development covering the entire spectrum of nuclear science, chemical engineering, material sciences and metallurgy, electronic instrumentation, biology and medicine, supercomputing, high-energy physics and plasma physics and associated research for Indian nuclear programme and related areas.

BARC’s core mandate is to sustain peaceful applications of nuclear energy. It manages all facets of nuclear power generation, from the theoretical design of reactors to, computer modeling and simulation, risk analysis, development and testing of new reactor fuel, materials, etc. It also researches spent fuel processing and safe disposal of nuclear waste. Its other research focus areas are applications for isotopes in industries, radiation technologies and their application to health, food and medicine, agriculture and environment, accelerator and laser technology, electronics, instrumentation and reactor control and material science, environment and radiation monitoring etc. BARC operates a number of research reactors across the country.^[3]

Its primary facilities are located in Trombay, with new facilities also located in Challakere in Chitradurga district of Karnataka. A new Special Mineral Enrichment Facility which focuses on enrichment of uranium fuel is under construction^[when?] in Atchutapuram near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, for supporting India’s nuclear submarine program and produce high specific activity radioisotopes for extensive research.