New Delhi, May 15: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Dr Jitendra Singh on Monday said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the last nine years witnessed a quantum jump in India’s Space journey.
India now stands at par with countries like the USA which had begun their space journey several years or decades before us, he said.
At a programme organised by a popular national Digital media channel here, Dr Jitendra Singh said that though the Indian space journey started off much later, after Prime Minister Modi came in, he gave a special boost to the space sector and opened it for public private participation with an increasing number of StartUps. “Today the situation is such that the earliest and the premier space organisations like America’s NASA are collaborating with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and even seeking expert inputs from us,” he said.
The minister said that before 2014, ISRO used to undertake launches now and then, but after Prime Minister Modi opened the doors of the space sector to private sector participation, today ISRO is working with nearly 150 private StartUps.
Recently ISRO launched a record 104 satellites aboard PSLV-C37 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota of which 101 belongs to international customers, signifying India’s increasing presence in the global space industry. “Moreover, the indigenous human space mission Gaganyaan is almost ready to carry Indians into space. If successful, India will be the fourth country to have sent a human to space, the other three being the US, Russia and China,” he added.
Talking more about India’s StartUp revolution, the Minister said that before 2014, there were just around 350 StartUps, but after Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the clarion call from the ramparts of the Red Fort in his Independence Day address and rolled out special StartUp scheme in 2016, there has been a quantum jump in StartUps to more than 90,000 with more than 100 Unicorns. India also has the world’s third largest StartUp ecosystem and has leapfrogged from 81st to 40th in the Global Innovation Index 2022.Similarly before 2014, India’s Bio-economy was valued at $10 billion. Now it’s over $80 billion. Biotech Startups have grown 100 times in the last 8 years from 52 odd startups in 2014 to 5300 plus in 2022, the Minister said.
Talking about Agri tech StartUps, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “Before 2014, no one knew about Aroma mission or Purple revolution. But today, lavender cultivation has led to the boom of Agri tech StartUps. Similarly before 2014, there was no concept of Preventive Healthcare in India, but today that same India is being recognised as the Vaccine Hub of the World. Before 2014, the mandate of the Ministry of Earth Sciences was not clearly defined. But through the Samudrayaan project under Deep Ocean Mission, India is ready to explore the vast resources of the Indian Ocean.”
The union minister underlined the need for sustaining the Start-Up movement and urged the industry to become equal stakeholder in the rapidly rising sector. He laid stress on the integration of start-up, research, academia, and industry for a win-win proposition for all.
