India eyes $40 billion space economy by 2040, says Jitendra Singh in Parliament

India aims at $40 billion space economy by 2040 from the current level of $8 billion, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday, claiming much of the space department’s success came in the last nine years of BJP rule.

“Our space economy is now worth of $8 billion, but we project it to reach $40 billion by 2040. A new report by management consultancy firm Arthur D Little says the Indian space economy can reach up to $100 billion by 2040,” Singh who also looks after Space and Atomic Energy said in the Rajya Sabha participating in a discussion on the success of Chandrayaan-3.

The minister made those comments responding to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who charged the BJP government for spreading misinformation about the success of the space programme by not acknowledging the role played by the founding fathers of Indian Space Research Organisation under decades of Congress leadership.

"I want to correct the complete distortion of facts that is being spread by the Leader of the House and the BJP that this glorious journey and the competencies, capabilities and capacities of India’s successful space programme built over six decades began only in 2014,” said the Congress leader.

Ramesh, while lauding the Chandrayaan-3 mission, said there was a need to remind the House of the people who had contributed so far to it, rather than falling victim to the impression that such an accomplishment was the result of only one individual.

"Even though the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House may choose to airbrush them away from history, they are a fact of life. They cannot be erased from history. They are very much part of our space journey," the Congress leader said, asserting that the government worked on continuity.

In his response, Singh accused successive Congress-led governments of "regimenting" the space department and debarring the common man and industry from it,

"Why were people kept away? You had kept the space department behind a veil of secrecy. You had regimented it. You had disallowed it to be synergised with all the stakeholders. You had disallowed the industry to indulge in this and that is why the progress halted," the minister told the Upper House.

“There were four start-ups in the space sector in 2013-14, now there are 150. It is true that foreign satellites were launched since 1990, but out of 424 foreign satellites launched so far, more than 90 per cent or 389 satellites were launched in the last nine years,” Singh said.

“Some enabling provisions must have been implemented by our government for such a growth,” Singh said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chipped in observing that rigorous policy changes were introduced by the Narendra Modi government including opening up the space sector to the private industry.

The Upper House discussed a motion titled 'India's Glorious Space Journey Marked By Successful Soft Landing of Chandrayaan-3’ throughout the day and adopted a unanimous resolution, praising India’s space success.