New Delhi, Dec 17: India has witnessed investment of over Rs 1,000 crore in Space Startups in the last nine months of the current financial year from April to December 2023, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said.
In an exclusive interview at the National Zee TV Conclave here, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology, MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “This has been possible because after a bold decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s Space sector has been opened up for private players, as a result of which there is an overwhelming response from Industry as well as investors from private sector.”
From just one Startup in the Space sector four years back, we have almost 190 private Space Startups after opening up the sector and the earlier ones of them have now turned entrepreneurs, he said, adding, “Overall from just about 350 Startups in the year 2014, today we have about 1,30,000 Startups, besides Unicorns.”
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided an enabling milieu with his vision and policy initiatives, Dr Singh said, “This has created the opportunity for entrepreneurship. In the Space sector, an interphase called “InSPACE” has been established and a public sector unit called “NSIL” has also been set up to facilitate PPP mode projects.”
He said PM Modi has scrapped obsolete rules and focused on citizen-centric governance through the optimum use of technology. In the same vein, the gates of Sriharikota have been thrown open to all stakeholders.
“Not only this, the government has been very inclined to use technology to the maximum extent and seeks to do away with all those hindrances or obstructionist rules that were not very enabling,” he said.
Citing the application of satellites and drones in mapping land ownership under the SVAMITVA scheme and Face Recognition Technology for DLC, Dr Jitendra said, “Our Chandrayaan Mission was the first to discover evidence of water on the moon.”
“The world will witness integrated technology-driven growth in the future. India is now taking the lead in frontier areas of technology, including Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology,” he added.
Citing the success of the Aroma Mission, the Union Minister said India has a huge wealth of untapped bioresources, an unsaturated resource waiting to be harnessed, ranging from the Himalayas to the 7,500 km long coastline.
Stating that the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (NRF) will be an important supplement to this entire ecosystem, Dr Singh said it will be majorly funded from non-government sources.
Complementing the NRF, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “NRF enriches the echo system along with the National Education Policy NEP-2020 which liberates students from being ‘prisoners of their aspiration’, by allowing switch over or combinations from different streams of studies such as Humanities and Commerce to Sciences and Engineering.”
