By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, May 16 (IANS): The opening up of the Indian space sector for private players as announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was termed as forward looking and will give a big boost for the industry, said industry officials and experts.
In the same breath, they also said opening up should be done carefully with a proper legal and regulatory framework.
"Space commerce is expected to grow quickly once Covid-19-related lockdowns are relaxed. These reforms will help spur the growth of Indian private space companies and increase India's share in the global space market. It will be a real opportunity for Indian private sector considering the way defence-space is also growing now," S. Rakesh, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Antrix Corporation Ltd, told IANS.
"The announcements are forward-looking, natural and logical structural reforms of the growing Indian space sector," K. Radhakrishnan, former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.
The space sector can be broadly divided into rocket launch, satellite manufacturing and satellite services.
"Of the present global space economy of $360 billion, 1.7 per cent revenue comes from the launch segment, 5.3 per cent from satellite manufacturing, 35 per cent from satellite services or payloads and another 34.7 per cent from ground services," Tapan Misra, Senior Advisor, ISRO told IANS.
Welcoming Sitharaman's proposal to revamp the space/data policy Misra said: "If we target even five per cent of the global space economy, we are looking at a business potential of more than Rs 125,000 crore while ISRO's budget is hovering around Rs 10,000 crore. We have a huge potential in the space industry which we could not harness in a commercial sense."
On Saturday, Sitharaman told the media in Delhi that Indian private sector will be a co-traveller in India's space sector journey and a level-playing field will be provided for them in satellites, launches and space-based services.
She also said a predictable policy and regulatory environment will be provided to private players.
According to her, the private sector will be allowed to use the facilities of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and other relevant assets to improve their capacities.
Sitharaman said future projects for planetary exploration, outer space travel and others are to be opened up for the private sector, adding there will be a liberal geo-spatial data policy for providing remote-sensing data to tech-entrepreneurs subject to various checks.
While welcoming the private participation in the Indian space research activities former Chairman of ISRO Madhavan Nair told IANS: "However we have to carefully consider some of the policy matters. First of all, there has to be our national space law which will define responsibilities and liabilities."
Nair said there has to be a proper control mechanism to ensure that the sensitive and critical technologies do not fall into the wrong hands.
"In spite of not having a viable aerospace industry in the country, ISRO has taken up initiative to ensure industrial participation in its programmes," Nair said.
According to him, space doesn't bring large revenues or profits and that how many would take up this challenge is a question.
"Space exploration is still more complex because returns are negative and it is only a long-term investment. The implementation has to done taking into account sensitivity to international regulations like MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) and international space laws," Nair said.
On the other hand Narayan Prasad, Chief Operating Officer, satsearch is of the view that Sitharaman's announcement is vague.
"The best is to establish an independent regulator -- Space Regulatory Authority of India (SRAI) -- which will create a level-playing field for many of the emerging players," Prasad told IANS.
"Establishing an independent regulator can allow a systematic review and reforms on a continuous basis rather than one-off announcements," Prasad added.