Roughly four months ago, a government panel came to the conclusion that the government itself had been selling cutting-edge data and technologies—satellite systems, rocket components, advanced materials, chemicals, specialised sub-systems—to the private sector for less than a song.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, headed by BJP MP Bhubaneswar Kalita, tabled a demand for grants that read: “It has been observed that technologies are often transferred to private players at undervalued rates, allowing these partners to earn significant profits while the originating institutes receive only a marginal share of the value created. Furthermore, there is no credible mechanism to verify whether the benefits of low-cost technology transfers are being passed on to the intended target users for whom the technologies were developed. In view of this, the committee recommends that the department of space (DoS) should consider adopting a more competitive and market-aligned pricing framework for technology transfer.”
It added, “Licensing fees should appropriately reflect the true commercial value, uniqueness and societal impact of technologies developed through public funding.” The panel also recommended clear guidelines to determine technology transfer costs, and a committee constituted by the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre or IN-SPACe to evaluate technology fees. To ensure transparency and accountability, it further recommended for all transfer agreements to be subject to periodic third-party audits.
The government-owned NewSpace India, a commercial arm of the high-profile department of space, which itself is directly under the Prime Minister's Office, has signed 100 transfer agreements covering 61 distinct technologies. Nearly 70 of the 100 were transferred for less than ₹10 lakh each, many for less than ₹5 lakh each, some for as little as ₹6,000 each, and a handful gratis.
The panel’s absence of trust in the existing system is obvious. It concluded that space tech is being transferred at inordinately low rates to private players, who are raking in the profits and sharing only a small percentage with “the originating institutes”. It recommended that all technology transfer agreements be cleared periodically by third-party audits. It did not clarify the nature of the third party, leaving the door open for both government and private sector butting-in, fiddling the books, retrospective redaction and creative obfuscation.
This has been done before for decades in the public sector—which is why, one assumes, the panel asked for the essentials of the technologies NewSpace India had transferred since its much-publicised inauguration in May 2019, including information on the fees it had received through such transfers, these appraisals being vital in tracking the internal assigning of proper valuations, and the identification and pinpointing of possible windfall profits.
Most of these questions have gone unanswered. This is concerning because the public-private growth in India’s space sector has been exponential. India’s space economy is currently valued at about $8.4 billion (₹80,848 crore), is projected to expand five-fold to between $40-45 billion (₹384,862-433,176 crore) by 2030, reaching $100 billion (₹964,800 crore) by 2040.
The number of space startups in India has grown from one in 2014 to more than 400 in 2026. NewSpace India’s revenue has surged from ₹321.77 crore in 2020 to ₹3,246.09 crore in 2025—a head-spinning 908.82 percent in a mere five years.
Driving all this is IN-SPACe, a single-window agency authorising space activities by government and private organisations—a body incalculably powerful because it is single-window and omnipotent. As of June 2026, IN-SPACe had registered more than 4,500 organisations, issued 133 authorisations and signed 106 memorandums of understanding. By February 2026, it had facilitated more than ₹1,400 crore in startup investments in 2025. By June 2026, IN-SPACe had facilitated 118 teach transfers and signed 189 joint implementation plans and partnership agreements.
IN-SPACe authorises everything from launch, operation, data dissemination, infrastructure use, issues guidelines on safety, security, liability, and prioritisation of shared facilities, and promotes industry clusters, technology transfer and equitable access to public infrastructure.
It operates under the DoS, and seems to be paradoxically a roaring success—because, meanwhile, the DoS is a mess. It has a staff shortage of 27.8 percent. Against a sanctioned strength of 20,269 posts, DoS has 14,637 employees—or 5,632 fewer than optimum, lower than in 2002. Since three-fourths of the DoS workforce comprises scientific and technical personnel, the vacancies are mostly of engineers, scientists and designers of satellites, launchers and deep-spacefaring missions.
By January 2026, the DoS used only 78 percent of its revised allocation for 2025-26. At the budget stage, the allocation for Chandrayaan-4, due for launch in 2027, was hacked to ₹21 crore from ₹150 crore—because it was unspent. The Venus Orbiter Mission Shukrayaan-1, scheduled for launch in March 2028, spent ₹5 crore from its earlier allocated corpus of ₹50 crore.
Stunning employee shortage, outlays hacked or unspent on flagship spacefaring—and, at the same time, there are tech transfers to the private sector at cut-rate prices and corporate astronautics feeding off Isro tech. These beg not conspiracies, but a question. Where is the DoS budget—of ₹13,705.63 crore in 2026, an increase of more than 10 percent—being applied?
Kajal Basu | Veteran journalist
(Views are personal)
(kajalrbasu@gmail.com)