Not sufficient acumen in India’s private space industry yet: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: India’s privately owned companies in the space sector still don’t have “sufficient acumen” as a result of which public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited bagged the much-awaited contract to “manufacture and commercialise” the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), Union Science Minister Jitendra Singh said here on Monday.

Singh said private companies have been experiencing a “gap” in their abilities possibly because earlier the policies were not very favourably inclined to them.

The minister’s comments come days after HAL secured the SSLV contract in a competitive process to emerge as the third Indian company to manufacture and launch rockets. The SSLV, designed for the industry, will carry satellites weighing up to 500 kg to low earth orbits.

HAL presented the winning bid of Rs 511 crore to emerge as the sole manufacturer of the SSLV after the completion of the transfer of technology process in the next two years.

The Bengaluru-based aviation major defeated two consortia -- one led by Alpha Design Technologies, backed by the Adani Group, and the other led by Hyderabad-based defence PSU Bharat Dynamics Limited.

“We don’t have sufficient private sector acumen (in space) because it takes time. When the private sector understands that they will have to play at a larger scale, they will start building capacity. We need to develop the private sector to become an active participant in collaboration,” the minister said.

The space sector in India was under government control for decades and was opened up for private firms only in recent years. More than 250 start-ups and 50 large companies are active in the space business, but only two companies, Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos, have built rockets.

The minister was addressing a press conference on the S&T achievements of the last 11 years where top officials also admitted that none of the 10,000 plus start-ups in the biotechnology sector have floated an IPO, which is considered a milestone for success.

“I would agree that one of the measures of success is an IPO in the market,” said Rajesh Gokhale, secretary, Department of Biotechnology when asked about absence of an IPO from the biotech sector.

“But the second measure of success is equity valuation that companies have garnered over a period of time. Biotech companies do take a long incubation period. Nevertheless, more than Rs 7000 crore have been raised by BIRAC companies,” he said.

Set up in 2012, the Biotechnology Research and Assistance Council (BIRAC) promotes home-grown biotech-based start-ups and entrepreneurship.

From less than 500 start-ups and just about 10 indigenous products in 2014, the numbers have zoomed past 10,000 plus and over 800 respectively, taking India’s bio-economy to $ 165.7 billion by Dec 2024 as against $ 28 billion in 2014.