Government Initiatives on ISRO

Government Initiatives on ISRO

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Space Technology

Context: Researchers from the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) and the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) valued India’s ‘Space economy’ at ₹36,794 Crore for 2020-21.

Concept:

• The findings outlined the annual budget for the space programme and its constituents- space manufacturing, operations and application. It found space applications accounted for the major chunk of this evolving economy, constituting 73.57% (₹27,061 crore) of it in 2020-21, followed by space operations (₹8,218.82 crore or 22.31%) and manufacturing (₹1,515.59 crore or 4.12%).
• It seems that there is a decline in the budget for space related activities leading to a reduction in the size of economy in the last two years. It shrunk from ₹43,397 crore in 2018-19 to ₹39,802 crore in 2019-20 and ₹36,794 crore in 2020-21.
• Moreover, India’s space economy has evolved considerably and now accounts, on an average, for about 0.23% of the GDP.
• But, the space budget as a percentage of the GDP slipped from 0.09% in 2000-01 to 0.05% in 2011-12, and has remained more or less at that level since then.
• India’s spending is more than that of China, Germany, Italy and Japan, but less than of the U.S. and Russia.

Govt Initiatives to improve Space Technology:

To provide a level playing field for private companies to use Indian Space Infrastructure, the Government has approved the creation of following institutions and measures which include:

1. New Space India Ltd (2019)
2. Spacecom Policy- 2020
3. IN- SPACe – 2020
4. The Indian Space Association (ISpA)

Spacecom Policy (2020):

The Government of India under the Spacecom Policy shall:

• adopt measures to monitor and authorize use of space assets for communication to or from Indian territory.
• ensure protection of space assets already put in place and adopt measures to bring in more space assets under the administrative control for enhancing ability to utilize space-based communication for national needs.
• promote increased participation of commercial Indian industry to provide space-based communications both within the country and outside.
• concentrate on realization of space-based communication systems for addressing the requirements that cannot be effectively, affordably and reliably satisfied by commercial Indian industry either because of national security concerns or economic factors.
• provide a timely and responsive regulatory environment for the commercial Indian industry to establish and operate space-based communication systems.

To know about ISpA, NSIL and IN- SPACe refer: Indian Space Association – Optimize IAS and IN-SPACe – Optimize IAS