India witnesses over Rs.1,000 crore investment in Space Startups in last nine months: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh.

According to Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, India’s space startups have received an investment of over Rs.1,000 crore in the last nine months of the current financial year from April to December 2023. This has been made possible due to the bold decision taken by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to open up India’s space sector for private players. As a result, there has been an overwhelming response from the industry and investors from the private sector. Four years ago, there was only one startup in the space sector, but now there are almost 190 private space startups.Dr Jitendra Singh said that Prime Minister Modi has provided an enabling environment with his vision and policy initiatives, which has created the opportunity for entrepreneurship. In the space sector, an interphase called “InSPACE” has been established, and a public sector unit called “NSIL” has also been set up to facilitate PPP mode projects.

Dr Jitendra Singh highlighted that PM Modi has scrapped obsolete rules and focused on citizen-centric governance through the optimum use of technology. The gates of Sriharikota have also been thrown open to all stakeholders. Furthermore, the government has been inclined to use technology to the maximum extent and seeks to do away with all hindrances or obstructionist rules that are not very enabling.

Dr Jitendra Singh also cited the application of satellites and drones in mapping land ownership under the SVAMITVA scheme and Face Recognition Technology for DLC. He mentioned that India’s Chandrayaan Mission was the first to discover evidence of water on the Moon.

The Union Minister stated that India is taking the lead in frontier areas of technology, including Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology. He also mentioned the success of the Aroma Mission and the huge wealth of untapped bioresources that India possesses, ranging from the Himalayas to the 7,500 km long coastline.

Dr Jitendra Singh stated that the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (NRF) will be an important supplement to this entire ecosystem and will be majorly funded from non-government sources. He also complemented the NRF and the National Education Policy NEP-2020, which liberates students from being “prisoners of their aspiration” by allowing switch over or combinations from different streams of studies such as Humanities and Commerce to Sciences and Engineering.