We have almost 190 private Startups after opening up of the Space sector and the earlier ones have now turned entrepreneurs: Dr Jitendra Singh
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, December 17, 2023: India has witnessed investment of over Rs.1,000 crore
in Space Startups in last nine months of the current financial year from April to
December 2023, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh has said. During an exclusive
interview at the Zee TV National Conclave in New Delhi, Union Minister of State
(Independent Charge) Science & Technology, MoS PMO, Personnel, Public
Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this has
been possible because after a bold decision taken by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, India's Space sector has been opened up for private players, as a result of
which there is an overwhelming response from Industry as well as investors from
private sector.
From just one Startup in the Space sector four years back, we have almost 190
private Space Startups after opening up of the sector and the earlier ones of them
have now turned entrepreneurs, he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, overall from just about 350 Startups in the year 2014, today
we have about 1,30,000 Startups, besides Unicorns.
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided an enabling milieu with his
vision and policy initiatives, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this has created the opportunity
for entrepreneurship. In the Space sector, an interphase called "InSPACE" has been
established and a public sector unit called "NSIL" also set up to facilitate PPP mode
projects, he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, PM Modi has scrapped obsolete rules and focused on
citizen-centric Governance through optimum use of technology. In the same vein, the
gates of Sriharikota have been thrown open to all stakeholders, he said.
“Not only this, Government has been very inclined to use technology to the
maximum extent and seeks to do away with all those hindrances or obstructionist
rules that were not very enabling,” he said.
Citing the application of satellites and drones in mapping land ownership under the
SVAMITVA scheme and Face Recognition Technology for DLC, Dr Jitendra Singh
said, our Chandrayaan Mission was the first to discover evidence of water on the
Moon.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, the world will witness integrated technology driven growth in
the future. India is now taking the lead in frontier areas of technology, including
Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology, he said.
Citing the success of Aroma Mission, the Union Minister said India has a huge
wealth of untapped bioresources, an unsaturated resource waiting to be harnessed,
ranging from the Himalayas to the 7,500 kms long coastline.
Stating that the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (NRF) will be an
important supplement to this entire ecosystem, Dr Jitendra Singh said it will be
majorly funded from non-government sources.
Complementing the NRF, Dr Jitendra Singh said, NRF enriches the ecosystem along
with 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.
