Telangana looks to be major space tech hub

Adarsh Nagar: With a vision to make Telangana a commercial hub for all space-related products and services, the state government has decided to formulate a space-tech policy framework.

The policy aims to push domestic production of launch vehicles, satellite systems and sub-systems and ground equipment manufacturing.

Principal Secretary, Industry and Commerce, Jayesh Ranjan, said on Sunday that Telangana was creating a holistic framework to develop end-to-end space tech ecosystem in the state and attempt to capture the emerging global opportunities in space-related investments and innovations.

"This can potentially create a trickle-down impact on other areas of innovation such as universal connectivity and big data analytics for agriculture, remote education, disaster management," he said.

Equal emphasis would be given to downstream applications of remote sensing that have the potential to solve real-life problems in agriculture, disaster management, insurance, urban flood modeling and forestry.

The Centre's Department of Space recently released the draft Spacecom Policy 2020 and draft SpaceRS policy 2020. Officials said States can significantly contribute to achieving the national objectives like "Atmanirbhar Bharat".

Telangana is already home to several renowned start-ups such as Skyroot, Dhruva and other major companies in the space tech sector. The city also has facilities of Defence Research and Development Organisation, National Remote Sensing Centre, the Advanced Data Processing Research Institute, the Defence Research & Development Laboratory, the Research Centre Imarat, Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd, Ordnance Factory Board, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, and Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials.

To formulate Telangana's space tech policy framework, the State government held a virtual consultation. It invited stakeholders like hardware start-ups, analytics start-ups and academia to share their insights during a virtual stakeholder consultation. Uma Maheshwaran, Scientific Secretary, ISRO HQs, and Dr Ravi Kumar, Director, NRSC) also attended the event.