In the words of Devusinh Chauhan, minister of state for communications, the government will push the space sector to reduce its reliance on imports and manufacture space-related equipment locally, as it does in the telecom sector.
"India's telecom sector had huge reliance on imports, but...the country is now manufacturing telecom products (locally) and preparing for the next-generation of telecom technology…," Chauhan said in a speech to the industry on Tuesday. "Space will also have (an indigenous) technology like this."
The minister urged industry and stakeholders to investigate additional futuristic technologies that could be "worked upon" in the telecom and satellite sectors. However, Tata-backed Nelco has warned that the very survival of satellite players in India is at stake if satellite spectrum is not priced correctly by the government. The company reiterated its call for satellite spectrum allocation through the administrative route, as is customary around the world.
"Spectrum is the lifeline of the satellite industry..."Unless that is truly (at) the right price, the industry will perish," Nelco managing director PJ Nath said at the event. He added, however, that Nelco is confident that the government will make the correct decision.
The industry is divided on how to allocate satellite spectrum for satellite broadband services. Satellite firms such as Starlink, Amazon-backed Project Kuiper, Bharti-backed OneWeb (which recently merged into France's Eutelsat), Canada's Telesat (which is partnering with Nelco), and US-based Hughes want administrative allocation. However, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea argue that the airwaves must be auctioned off.