Karnataka looks to boost space sector investments

Following the launch of the Global Capability Center (GCC) policy, the Karnataka government has now put out a draft note of Karnataka Space Technology Policy, 2024-2029 at the Bengaluru Tech Summit. Through the policy, the state government hopes to garner a 50% market share in the overall space technology market in India and leverage the existing ecosystem with the Indian Space Research Centre’s existence and other public sector establishments like National Aeronautics Ltd and new age space startup companies already existing in the state. 

The state government has identified several key areas of focus under the policy such as promoting skill development in the area where students and young professionals would be industry-ready for both domestic and international space companies and incentivising investment to attract both domestic and foreign capital into the state in the space sector. The state also plans to set up dedicated manufacturing parks for space companies and testing centres. 

Dr. S. Somanath, Secretary of the Department of Space and chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who was present at the summit, says that in the last 10 years, the Indian space sector has been supporting the telecom, information technology and administration sectors and that a value addition of $60 billion is being made with nearly 4.7 million jobs. Dr. Somanath states that though there has been a huge economic impact, the scale, still being low, leaves room for a lot of work yet to be done. “Our contribution and space economy is very low, less than 2% and our rightful share must be at least 10% of the global space economy, which will grow over time. This should come from all areas and segments, the upstream, downstream segment, as well as a mid-stream, which defines the application domain, the space spacecraft building and launch vehicle building,”  he said. 

While the detailed policy is likely to be out by the time of the next state budget, the current draft note also mentions the intention to bring out initiatives to help start-ups and MSMEs with research and development, IP creation and marketing themselves. At the same, the government will act as an anchor in the creation of digital public goods for geospatial technologies and revenue-linked incentives for downstream space use cases.