NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh today informed the Rajya Sabha about the historic decision to “unlock” India’s Space to private sector. This move will, by implication, open up the Space sector to private players, for the first time in India.
In reply to a question, the Minister stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for Space technology is to unlock India’s potential in the Space sector, in order to transform skill, capacity and creativity to make the country self-reliant and technologically advanced. This historic decision also seeks to create opportunities for large scale employment generation in the Space sector.
Dr Jitendra Singh , in the reply, further stated that India, as a global space technology powerhouse, will play a major catalytic role in the advancement of socio-economic use of space assets, while guiding & promoting the private sector through enabling policy environments. This will also help transform the approach in the Space sector from supply driven to demand driven model for optimum utilization of national resources while harnessing capacity and creative skills, and the focus shall be more on R&D, cutting-edge technology, newer frontiers in space, space exploration, human space flight with a view to attract & exploit the potential of the future generation.
The new vision for Space technology will also provide enhanced benefits to the common man, through further development of technology-delivered public services in a faster, cheaper and efficient manner, stated the Minister.
Pertinent to mention that the Government had recently announced that it will create a new regulatory body called Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) as a move to open up the Space sector to the private sector to be able to offer end-to-end space-based applications and services for the first time in the country. Further it may be recalled that in 2015, the Department of Space had organised a national Space meet with 1500 officials from various government ministries/departments where even the PM participated. An estimated 150 projects across different ministries/departments is said to have emerged in wide ranging areas including Natural Resources Management, Energy and Infrastructure, Disaster and Early Warning, Communication and Navigation, e-Governance and Geo-spatial Governance and Societal Services.
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