NEW DELHI: A recent study by the Indian space agency on whether the money invested in the sector has benefitted society found that for every rupee that the organisation spent, the return is Rs 2.5, said Isro chairman S Somanath on Tuesday.
At an interactive session with students of Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society, Somnath said Isro’s goal is to serve the country rather than to compete for supremacy among the spacefaring nations. “Going to the Moon is a costly affair. And we cannot depend only on the govt for funding. We must create business opportunities. If you have to sustain it, you have to create a use for it. Otherwise, after we do something, the govt will tell you to close down,” he said.
Somanath was referring to the Socio-Economic Impact Analysis of Indian Space Programme, a report commissioned by Isro in collaboration with European space consultancy Novaspace that assessed the benefits of India’s space program. The report, however, talked about the returns the space sector was receiving in terms of dollars. The report, released by space minister Jitendra Singh on National Space Day, said the space sector has contributed $60 billion to India’s GDP between 2014 and 2024. For every dollar generated by the space sector, the Indian economy has seen a multiplier effect of $2.54.
The Indian space sector’s revenues have grown to $6.3 billion as of 2023, making it the eighth-largest space economy in the world. It has created 4.7 million jobs, including 96,000 jobs in the public and private sector, it said.
As of 2024, the Indian space economy is valued around Rs 6,700 crore ($8.4 billion), contributing 2%-3% of the global space economy which is expected to reach $13 billion by 2025 at compound annual growth (CAGR) of 6%. India aims to capture a 10% share of the global economy by the next decade.
The total investment in Isro till date in the last 55 years since its inception is less than a single year’s budget of US space agency Nasa. Isro’s current annual budget is about $1.6 billion and Nasa’s current annual budget is $25 billion, which is about 15.5 times larger than India’s spending on space. India has over 400 private space companies — which was just 54 in 2020
As per last estimates by Isro, a total of 127 Indian satellites, including those from private operators and academic institutions, have been launched till Dec 31, 2023. India has launched 97 rockets and sent 432 foreign satellites to space. It has three different rockets available for commercial launches. The report said Isro helps eight lakh fishermen daily and 140 crore Indians get the benefit of satellite-based weather forecasts. India’s spy satellites with 25cm resolution are among the best in the world.
On the interplanetary exploration front, India made history by capturing the orbit of the Moon and Mars in its first attempts. India also soft-landed its Chandrayaan-3 lander Vikram near the Moon’s unexplored south pole. India is at present studying the Sun 24×7 through the Aditya L-1 satellite.