By Roshani Chaudhary, a student of B.A.LL.B(hons) at University of Rajasthan, five year law college, Jaipur

INTRODUCTION

The Indian space policy 2023, is formulated to encourage, and develop a flourishing commercial presence in space. This policy has a vision to use space for technological development and obtain benefits from allied areas. It enhanced the participation of NGE’s in space domain in order to create a thriving space ecosystem. ISP, 2023 resulted to be the successful project which targets to boost up the socio-economic development, security and protection of environment and exploration of outer space. The government’s approach is to seek to encourage and promote private enterprises in the space economy. This policy explains the depth of roles and responsibilities of ISRO, IN-SPACe, NGE, NSIL. This step taken by government has resulted being in broadening the scope of India’s opportunity for enhancing the stake in space economy.

THE PREVIOUS SPACE POLICIES

Since the beginning of Indian space programme, 1969 five space policies had been initiated by the government. The main purpose of these policies were to boost up the space economy with success and initiate the growth in Indian space industry. The Indian space policy, 1969 was the first policy and in this policy, the government targeted to create space technology for the benefit of the country. It also initiated to bring up the international collaboration for the space exploration.

India’s remote sensing data policy from 2001-2011 was the second space policy. This policy explains how remote sensing data works and how it can be utilized for gaining benefits. The main purpose for the creation to make sure that the data should be utilized for the lawful purposes. The misuse of the data was strictly prohibited. As it can be a threat to national security and public’s privacy.

The Satellite communication policy was India’s third policy. This policy governs the usage of the satellite communication. This policy ensures that all the residents could able to access the services which are being provided to them. This also encourages the growth of the India’s satellite communication industry.

The national geospatial policy, 2016 is the fourth policy. This policy governs the usage of geospatial data of India. This data was created to ensure that this data should be used for the lawful purposes and wouldn’t be abused to breach the privacy of the public.

The space activities bill, 2023 is the fifth policy. This policy was initiated to propose a legislative framework for the authorization and supervision of the space activities. This one helped in monitoring the activities and depth analysis too. This policy ensures the protection and security in using the outer space during promoting space activities.

Now, comes the latest policy, Indian space policy, 2023 which provides a framework for the private sector to participate in the space activities. This ensures that the government is working for the space industry so that technological development can be done in space domain.

WHAT’S THE MAIN FOCUS OF THE POLICY?

The new space policy mainly focuses upon below mentioned major areas.

• a). Encouraging space entrepreneurship and the participation of private sectors:

This policy deserves an appreciation in promoting entrepreneurship in the space industry. This manages to provide a vibrant ecosystem for the innovative start-ups and ambitioned to position India  as global hub for the space entrepreneurship. This policy resulted wonders in acknowledging the need of licensing framework, financing, mechanism to encourage the private enterprises for the participation and setting up the favorable regulations. It highlights the major requirements of approval process, regulatory measures, setting up the incentives for the private players in the space industry. This plot of the policy attracts the investments, bring up the new innovative ideas, boost up the entrepreneurship in the space domain and stimulates the healthy environment and competition among the players.

This policy facilitates the dynamic ecosystem for the nurturing the talent and accelerates the development of the space industry. It also emphasizes the significance the technology incubators, research parks etc to the space domain and these requires proper infrastructure, mentorship, funding support, to grow the start up culture and promote entrepreneurship. According to the policy, the Indian space research organization focuses upon the research and development of new space technology and extends the better human understanding for the space domain.

• b). Nurture the space education and research

Indian space policy, 2023 primarily focuses on encouraging the role of education and research in shaping the nation’s space program. This mainly emphasizes on the importance of the investing in space education, involvement of skilled workforce and encouraging deep research.

This policy also caters students to delve into the knowledge of space. This includes scientific curiosity and science exploration for better understating of the subject. To encourage the practical based knowledge of space, student satellite missions, competitions for better knowledge, inspire the young generations to develop interest in space domain is emphasized by the space policy.

Furthermore, this policy works for exploration by the establishment of research institutions and centers of excellence which is dedicated to the space industry. These institutions are becoming of hub of knowledge, advanced research and helps in exploring the scientific knowledge. This policy encourages the institutions to work for the better space related programs and scientific laboratory for research.

• c). Holistic space applications:

Indian space policy, 2023 aims to improve the lives of the public with the innovation. The policy has the capability to address the societal challenges and results in the transformative ideas to curb off the problems. There is one of the significant aspect of the policy is that it focuses upon the utilization of the space technology in agriculture productivity and food security. With the help of satellite data, the farmers can obtain the crucial information about the soil moisture, weather patterns and crop health. Due to this information, they can make decisions on the irrigation process, fertilizer usage, management of pests and insects, and this can lead to yielding of the healthy crops.

This technology can also work wonders during the time of disaster management as  it can detect the early warnings of the disasters, post disaster assessment and response coordination. The technology can provide real time data on natural disasters, weather reports and the unusual changes in the environment. This technology is a fortune for the disaster prone areas like India where the cases of heavy rainfall, flood, land slides, cyclones, earthquakes etc happens frequently.

• d). Pioneering indigenous capabilities:

Indian space policy mainly focuses upon the indigenous capabilities in the space industry. The main was to reduce the dependency from the external source for improving India’s technological development. It has empowers India to excel in design, development, launching vehicles. Manufacturing the satellites, and other technologies too. India aims to foster the indigenous excellence and build up a strong framework for the space technologies. Establishment of the regulatory framework for the research and development in the space domain is aimed by focusing on the infrastructure, encouraging innovation and nurturing the young talent of India.

The main significance of this policy is collaborative research, and development efforts between the academia, government institution, and the industry. India’s space program promotes the partnership and knowledge sharing for the better innovation and it do emphasize upon the benefits of interdisciplinary expertise. It also encourages to increase the commercialization of the space technologies to improve the entrepreneurship in the space industry.

Make in India was one of the great initiatives by the government launched in 2014 and it aims to reduce the reliance upon the external source and promote domestic manufacturing. This initiative turned out to be one of the successful plans as it attracts the foreign investment and boost up the India’s technological development.

• e). International collaboration and partnership:

This policy recognizes the importance of the international collaboration and the benefits gained by this collaboration results into the success of the policy. Due to this policy, India commits to international organization and private entities to foster the partnership. Such partnerships results in encouraging the research, development, nurturing the young minds, involvement of the technology transfer, propelling the space program and make it to the new heights of success.

The active participation in the international collaboration not only develop the technologies but also improve the diplomatic relations of other countries with India which proves India to be a trustworthy partner for the collaborations.

There are few examples of partnered projects with India like in Gaganyaan project, India and Russia will send three Indian astronauts for 3 days in the space. These collaboration helps the both countries as they share the resources and expertise for one objective and it also reduces the expense space exploration.

This policy topo recognizes the importance of the pubic-private partnership as it includes the private entities to participate in the space activities. This collaboration not only help in innovations but also in job creation, technological development, entrepreneurship, and also opens the door for the start-ups in the space domain and brings up the new innovative ideas on the table.

WHAT ARE THE GAPS IN THE POLICY?

We have discussed the main areas on which this policy focuses upon and also the merits too, so now discuss the gaps in the policy and how can we fix these gaps.

This policy doesn’t provide a proper time framework to take further steps ahead. Also, there is no timeline for the ISRO’S transitioning out of its current practices and there isn’t any proper time framework for the IN-SPACe for making any regulations. There are some challenges for this policy too as:

a). the space exploration requires huge investments and private enterprises and start-ups can struggle in investing this huge amount and at the end the government has to fulfill the necessity of the amount.

b). space exploration requires highly expertized technology and India is lacking behind in the expenditure for the research and development and this reason might hinder the growth of the policy.

c). Only a few schools and colleges offer space science as their part of curriculum and this can lead to the shortage of the young generations into the field of space.

These gaps can be prevented by some measures like:

• a). Indian space policy is a great vision but we need to convert this vision into reality and for that we need to regulate the time framework to make this policy successful.

• b). The government should set out the time limit for both IN-SPACe and ISRO. The government should also propose a bill which eradicate the ambiguity of the related to the foreign investments, and the government support for the new start-ups. It is the duty of the government to look upon these measures and address this issue with all the attention. Its high time to explore the space domain and make our country’s youth to indulge into the space domain.

“Our future lies with today’s youth and tomorrow’s space exploration”