New Delhi, Mar 6: India’s Space economy stands at a modest $8 billion, but the government is targeting a five-fold increase in the country’s share of the global space economy, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday.
“Our own projection is that by 2040 India’s space economy will multiply manifold. But more interesting is that according to some international observers, for example, the recent ADL (Arthur D Little) Report mentions that we could have the potential of $100 billion by 2040,” the minister said.
Addressing the gathering after launching the Technical Centre of IN-SPACe here, the Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Atomic Energy and Space said India’s quantum leap in the space sector has only been possible after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the courageous decision to “unlock” this sector from the “veil of secrecy”.
“Prime Minister Modi has broken taboos of the past by opening the space sector to public-private-participation,” he pointed out.
The minister said: “Four to five years back, we had just one digit Startups in the Space sector, today we have nearly 200 private Space Startups after opening up of the sector while the earlier ones have even turned entrepreneurs. There has been an investment of over Rs.1,000 crore by private Space Startups in the current financial year from April to December 2023.”
The Union Minister gave full credit to PM Modi for enabling India’s space scientists to vindicate the dream of their founding father Vikram Sarabhai by “unlocking” India’s space sector and providing an enabling milieu in which India’s huge potential and talent could find an outlet and prove itself to the rest of the world.
“Even though talent was never lacking in the country, the missing link of an enabling milieu was created under the leadership of PM Modi. With the opening up of the Space sector, the common masses have been able to witness the launch of the mega Space events like Chandrayaan-3 or Aditya,” he added.