29 Oct 2022
The space sector is one of the vibrant sectors for India and the country has successfully developed indigenous capabilities to empower growth of the sector. ISRO has been at the forefront of the growth journey and has played a significant role in enabling Aatmanirbharta for the sector, enabling it to serve the common man.
India’s share in space commerce is around 2% of global space economy and the country holds great promise as a destination for increased space commerce and also as a manufacturing hub. This is largely due to a large number of reform measures taken by the Government, including restructuring of the Department of Space by formation of NSIL, as a market focused organisation.
This was done with an aim to exploit the commercial markets through national assets and associated services, mandating ISRO to enhance focus on R&D, astronomical studies and space exploration missions and creating Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) a nodal agency to promote, handhold, monitor and regulate, the sector and enable the non-Government players in the Space sector to enter, establish and grow. The genesis of these reforms is to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, and to increase India’s share in the global space sector to a position of prominence.
CII, under the aegis of the National Committee on Space, has been working closely with ISRO, NSIL and IN-SPACe and is making efforts towards shaping the changes in policies by actively pursuing industry recommendations with the Government. The initiatives are driven with the vision of building a strong ecosystem for space activities, enhancing the engagement of Indian industry in the space sector and helping the industry develop competence to participate in the global space related business.
Creating a conducive policy ecosystem for the space sector is at the core of all our activities. For this, we have provided recommendations to the Draft Spacecom Policy 2021, Draft Space RS policy 2021, Technology Transfer (TT) Policy – DoS -2021, National Space Policy 2022, and FDI policy in Space.
Realizing the relevance of international cooperation which plays a major role in building stronger bilateral and multilateral relations, CII took the space delegation to Washington DC and Los Angeles during the year 2019. The delegation also visited to the SpaceX, laboratories/ facilities at NASA Goddard, Jet Propulsion Laboratory – NASA, Caltech and Keystone and met senior officials of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, USIBC, and Caltech University. Now that our lives and activities are getting back to preCOVID times, we may look forward to many more such delegations, to learn from best practices and empower the industry to adopt them.
Recognizing the significance of Indian private sector participation and to enhance it further, and forge new and meaningful global partnerships in the space domain, CII has been organizing the Space Expo since 2008. This year, the 7th edition of the event provided an excellent opportunity to Indian and international space agencies to showcase their strengths and encouraged partnerships amongst Indian and international space agencies.
CII is optimistic that with the support from the ISRO, NSIL and IN-SPACe, we will continue to strive for the development of Space sector so that it can bloom to its fullest potential.
This article was contributed by Mr Jayant Patil, Chairman, CII National Committee on Space and Whole-time Director and Senior Executive Vice President for L&T’s Defence Business and was first published in CII Communique October 2022 edition.