New Delhi: The venture capital fund for the space sector, BioE3 Policy that aims to promote biomanufacturing, and Mission Mausam that targets improving weather forecasts are only the beginning of the bigger plans of the government for advancing science and technology in India, Union Minister for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said Saturday.
“All these announcements have come within 100 days of the Modi 3.0 government. The focus of our government is to strengthen the prospects of science, technology and innovation in India in the coming years,” Jitendra Singh said.
In an exclusive conversation with ThePrint, Jitendra Singh also said that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) aims to launch India’s first human spaceflight by the end of 2025. Before that, the “dress rehearsal” will be initiated with a robotic mission by the end of 2024 or early 2025.
Below are the edited excerpts of Jitendra Singh’s interview:
With so many projects cleared in the last few months, what is your government’s long-term plan for the science and technology sector?
All projects are part of the first 100 days of the Modi government 3.0 story. There has been a startup venture capital fund of Rs 1,000 crore, the BioE3 policy, and Mission Mausam. All of these indicate the high priority the Prime Minister has assigned to science, technology, and innovation and to push forward all scientific ventures to meet global standards. Each of these projects has a story—very much linked with how the government has been functioning over the last 10 years under PM Modi, with quite a significant shift in priorities and a significant concern for timelines.
In the space sector, one day, historians will maybe analyse—why we were forced to function behind a veil of secrecy for six to seven decades. It limited our progress. We did not have any lack of talent and capabilities. But unfortunately, we did not have the support or assistance expected from a political dispensation. That came only after PM Modi took over. He allowed us to open the space sector to private participation. Today, we have nearly 300 space startups. The Rs 1,000 crore venture capital fund was to encourage these startups further.
Similarly, the BioE3 policy is an out-of-the-box decision. Many countries are yet to wake up to this new area. We believe that the next industrial revolution will be bioeconomy-driven. The last revolution in the 1990s in the IT sector had saturated. The economy is now shifting from manufacturing to recycling, synthesis, and lab-based solutions—all of which will make us self-reliant. These will give a significant boost to India’s economic growth.
Gaganyaan is one of the missions in the pipeline. Very recently, the government approved the Mission to Venus. What are the timelines for these missions?
The very prospect of Gaganyaan has given India a place of esteem. Till quite recently, we were not taken very seriously as far as our space initiatives were concerned. That was because of several reasons, including the constraint of resources.
But now, particularly after the Chandrayaan-3 achievement, since we have become the first to land near the southern pole of the Moon, Indian capabilities have been recognised all over the world. Now, India is in a position to offer cues to other countries to design their projects.
As far as Gaganyaan is concerned, we are already on trial flights. After the series of test flights, we will have one final robot-driven flight. You can call this the dress rehearsal. The female robot, Vyomitra, will perform all the tasks and experiments humans perform when they undertake missions.
Then, the actual human spaceflight will happen. That will possibly be in 2025. If we can not get the final robot mission done this year, we will have that in the first half of next year, and the final mission will be towards the end of that year.
ISRO and the Department of Biotechnology have signed an MoU to advance research in space biotechnology. India signed another such partnership with Germany. How significant are these partnerships?
If we want to achieve optimum progress in the field, the whole of science and technology has to come together with the government. The ultimate objective is not just to launch rockets but how much we can improve the lives of the common citizens. We have accomplished that better than many other countries. Launching rockets is a small component of space technology. Now, the technology is used for building smart cities, railway technology, telemedicine, agriculture, etc. Bringing biotechnology and space together will create a new era of space biology.
When we send astronauts to space, we study how their bodies and physiology would react to space. Similarly, when samples from space come back to Earth, we need to see how best to utilise them. It will work both ways—space scientists will require the assistance of biotechnologists and vice versa. The union of space and biotechnology will benefit both.
There is so much interlinkage among the sciences. We need to partner and understand these areas. We are also going ahead with some international collaborations.
With Germany, we signed the MoU recently.
Recently, there have been a lot of policy and technology interventions to change the image of the Met department. Mission Mausam is one of them. Can you tell us what work is happening on that front?
Before 2014, the Met department did not receive the kind of attention that it needed. So much so that weather forecasts presented on the radio also became an object of humour. It was said that if the forecast is for bad or rainy weather, you can expect it to be the opposite. The forecast was not taken seriously at all.
The department is 150 years old. But after Independence, we did not encourage it in the manner it deserved, without realising that it would hugely impact our agriculture sector. We launched Mission Mausam recently. Earlier, our forecasts relied only on radars, but now we have combined that with space technology. We are upgrading our equipment.
After Mission Mausam, our forecasts will reach global standards. The basic mantra is not what the weather will be tomorrow but what the weather will do tomorrow. You can prepare for the weather. If it rains, what are the likely outcomes and what can be done to avoid those impacts?
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)