The government on Tuesday approved Nuclear Energy Safety Regulatory Authority Bill, 2011, which aims to establish Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (AERA) as a statutory body answerable directly to the Parliament. Sources informed that a decision to clear the bill was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet, which was chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Now the bill is most likely to be introduced in Parliament during the ongoing session, the sources added. According to the bill, sources said, once enacted in the Parliament an AERA would come into being as a statutory body which will directly report to the Parliament and not to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The AERA will eventually subsume the existing Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, which currently oversees safety aspects at 22 running power plants in the country and report to the Atomic Energy Commission under the DAE. Claiming that best practices world over have been incorporated in the bill, sources said, the proposed regulator will have full power to stop construction work and order an operating nuclear plant to shut down operations. It also envisages government funding for the authority, they said, adding that the authority will also have its own independent research and development back up.