Space Sector: ISRO’s Commercial Arm NSIL To Invest Rs 10,000 Crore In Next Five Years

The NewSpace India Limited, a Government of India company under the Department of Space that serves as a commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Friday (12 March) said that it is looking at investing approximately Rs 10,000 crore over the next five years.

“We expect an investment of approximately Rs 2,000 crore per year starting next year or year after, that is the kind investment we are seeking to do, and our resources, manpower we are targeting a requirement of approximately 300 people in about five years from now,” said Radhakrishnan Durairaj, executive director of NSIL.

“We have contracts for four more dedicated launches but our NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) prevent us from revealing more details. All are foreign satellites,” Durairaj said.

“We were quite competitive commercially until recently. But now many international players have slashed their prices quite substantially. NSIL is not facing any major challenges but it (international players) is still quite a threat for us (NSIL),” he said.

He said that the company will raise capital with a mix of equity and debt, reports Hindustan Times.

On 28 February, ISRO launched Amazonia-I and 18 co-passenger satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, which was the first dedicated commercial mission of the NSIL.

“NSIL has established itself as a major space service provider in a very short period and in the not so distant future, you will see it emerging as a key player in all areas of space sector and space-based services in India with a significant global presence,” NSIL Chairman and Managing Director G Narayanan said.

The NSIL was incorporated on 6 March 2019. Its work mainly revolves around enabling industry participation in the country's space-related activities as well as promoting and seeking commercial gains from India's advanced and ever-flourishing space programme.

India has placed a total of 342 satellites from 34 countries in orbit thus far.

The Department of Space received a higher budgetary allocation in 2021 than in the previous two years – Rs 13,949.09 crore, with Rs 8,228.63 crore earmarked for capital expenditure.

The NSIL was allocated Rs 700 crore.