'Pull up people responsible for Chandrayan 2 faliure'

Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy on Wednesday demanded in Lok Sabha that the government pull up persons responsible for "failure" of Chandrayan-2 mission.

Participating in the debate on supplementary demands for grants, Roy objected to the decision of the government of providing additional funds to the Department of Space.

The crash landing of Vikram on the moon, he said, brought a bad name to the country.

Roy's comments evoked a sharp reaction from the treasury benches which wanted him to withdraw his remarks on the Chandrayan 2.

Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP), who was in the chair, said that historically India's space programme has done very well and the member should know about it.

Yesterday, NASA confirmed that nearly three months ago Chandrayaan-2 mission made a hard landing near the uncharted lunar south pole in the wee hours of September 7.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) attempted a soft landing of Vikram on the Moon. However, ISRO had lost contact with Vikram shortly before the scheduled touchdown.

Roy also regretted that the government was not allocating adequate funds to deal with the agrarian crisis and generating employment.

"The government should free the country of an atmosphere of fear," he said, adding "because of the fear factor the bank officers were not giving loans and officers were not taking decisions".

"Fear factor" he further said, was also hampering investment and employment generation.