Somnath, former president of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), said on Thursday (March 20, 2025) that India’s space sector is at the mouth of significant changes but needs to increase commercial applications of space technology to speed up economic growth.
In a conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Somnath highlighted that although India has made significant progress in space technology, its application has been limited to government programs mainly.
The former head of ISRO said, ‘The use of space technology has been focused on social and government programs. Now it is important to bring it to the commercial sector and mudge it.
He underlined that the reach of space applications in India is limited and only 10 % of the potential market could be found. Somnath said, ‘India is a huge country of 145 crore people, but the access of the application is very low. We are serving only in limited fields.
He emphasized the need to convert space technology into viable business opportunities and gave examples such as fisheries, where satellite data could bring revolutionary changes in traditional practices. Somnath also emphasized the unused capacity of satellite data in areas such as traffic management and railway monitoring.
Dr. Pawan Goenka, president of the in-space, also reiterated the idea and stressed the need to bridge the gap between space technology providers and final users. He said, ‘The space economy is already $ 440 billion globally and is expected to reach one thousand billion dollars by 2040. However, India’s share is only eight billion dollars. Our goal is to increase it to $ 44 billion by 2033, but it cannot be possible without increasing the demand.
Goenka highlighted the government’s efforts to promote the space sector, including an incentive of Rs 4,000 crore and projects worth Rs 25,000 crore for space -based monitoring by the Ministry of Defense. He also announced the approval of the Rs 1,000 crore enterprise capital fund to support the space startup. Both Somnath and Goenka called for more cooperation between the government, private sector and startup to exploit the full potential of space technology.
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