Government creates ecosystem for space sector startups

Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday accused the previous Congress governments of “regimenting” the space department and debarring the common man and industry from it, while asserting that the Modi government has created an enabling atmosphere for the success of the country’s space programme.

Participating in the debate on ‘India’s Glorious Space Journey Marked By Successful Soft Landing of Chandrayaan-3”, he said there are 150 startups in the space sector today against only four prior to 2014 which was “embarrassing”.

He also said that the space budget in the last nine years has increased to 142 per cent. Hitting back at Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who said that achievements of the last six decades in the space domain were ignored, the minister said the common man was earlier debarred from even peeping inside the premises of space institutions.

“Why they were kept away. You had kept the space department behind a veil of secrecy. You had regimented it. You had disallowed it to be synergised with all the stakeholders. You had disallowed the industry to indulge in this and that is why the progress halted,” he told the House.

He said it took us 75 years to reach here where we have. “Before 2014, there were four startups in space and it is embarrassing to say,” he said. “What is important is that when we started our programme in the early and mid-1960s, on the one hand you had (Vikram) Sarabhai devoid of transport and on the other hand you had Soviet Union and United States preparing to land a human on the surface of Moon. That was the gap and the difference distance between the two. Still this group of young scientists had that courage,” Singh said. He also mentioned Veeramuthuwel, the project director of Chandrayaan-3, who was sitting in the gallery, with the House lauding him with the thumping of desks.

“You have celebrated Chandrayaan, you have seen Chandrayaan and you have sung Chandrayaan. But this is the culture under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” the minister said, adding that, “With all the patronage of the government, this team works in anonymity.”

“If there was an iota of politics, it would not have been so. It would have been otherwise,” he said. “He is there and he does not even boast to be there. And, he was appointed by the present government,” Singh said, while noting that he is not a dynast.