Chairman S Somanath delivered the inaugural deal with within the Department of Space programme on Self-reliance in Space Technology.
| Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam/The Hindu
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S. Somanath on Friday mentioned that self-reliance doesn’t mean that we do everything ourselves.
Delivering the inaugural deal with within the Department of Space programme on Self-reliance in Space Technology, Mr. Somanath mentioned, “Indian space story is a story of atmanirbhartha (self-reliance), promoting atmanirbhartha. I would like to look at this word once again more carefully. What exactly do you mean by atmanirbhartha? I believe that it is nothing but if we want to do something we are not denied the possibility of doing it. It is simple like that. So, it doesn’t mean that you do everything by yourself. I think that meaning is not there”.
Mr. Somanath added that in a world which is getting extra linked and inclusive we can’t take such a stand that we are going to do everything ourselves and be in a closed society.
“Of course, such a society cannot grow because growth happens by participating with so many other people. I think this has been the trademark of ISRO as well when we started the whole programme of space we were not equipped to do it and we took support and help from so many people across the world, including advanced nations to initiate the capability and development in this country and we see the fruits of the benefit, ” Mr. Somanath added.
Mr. Somanath mentioned that when India’s area programme began there have been a number of questions as to why ISRO was doing it.
“Today it is very easy to say that we are already a developed nation, but we don’t even understand the difficulties and issues faced by the forefathers in even thinking about it (space programme),” Mr. Somanath mentioned.
Citing the instance of how India remains to be lagging within the area of digital chips, he mentioned that it’ll take one other 10-20 years for India to come back as much as some degree on this sector.
“Whom do we blame today? For what actions we did not take I think we will be blamed in the future. But space is definitely not a case to be mentioned like that. It is something that we must be proud of as there were at least few men and women to envision it, support it and create it in India so that we can talk about opening up the space sector, expanding space enterprise etc,” he mentioned.
Mr. Somanath mentioned that when India began its area programme it was lagging behind because it didn’t even have chemical compounds that make propellants and that even metal and aluminium used for constructing rockets and satellites weren’t made in India.
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“Today all of them are made in India, 90 per cent of the PSLV is actually produced in India, of course there are still imports which include alloying elements of the steel and there are electronic components that are still being imported in a substantial number, but that percentage is very small. But for spacecraft if you look at it is still 50 per cent, only 50 per cent of the value is produced in India, which means 50 per cent of the value is spent on import content,” he mentioned.
He as soon as once more reiterated that it isn’t a nasty factor to import programs as a result of there are higher merchandise obtainable outdoors so that we could make a extra environment friendly and value efficient satellite tv for pc.
“If you really want to expand the satellite building activity in this country we will ever be choked. Will we ever be able to get the best of the processors and chips that are made in the world at our disposal so that we can design a better satellite and compete with others in this same domain? These questions have to be addressed,” he mentioned.
