New Delhi: The Congress Sunday accused the Modi government of deliberately circumscribing the role of ISRO in the name of encouraging start-ups and claimed that the agency’s capabilities are to be transferred to private companies whose long-term commitment is doubtful.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared a screenshot of a media report which claimed that key employee associations at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have written to ISRO chairperson V Narayanan, questioning the direction of the agency’s privatisation drive and its implications for the existing workforce and the agency’s future role.
“In the name of encouraging startups in the space economy, ISRO’s role is being deliberately circumscribed by the Modi government. Worse, capabilities it has built up over decades in a painstaking manner are to be transferred to private companies whose long-term commitment is doubtful,” Ramesh said on X.
“It is courageous and commendable that voices from within the ISRO community are now speaking out as revealed in today’s Indian Express,” he said.
The recent stunning success of the GSLV launch has undoubtedly emboldened them, just as it would have come as a disappointment to ISRO-sceptics and ISRO-critics both in India and abroad, Ramesh said.
One former ISRO chairman has been bold enough to express his concerns, he said, in an apparent reference to former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair.
Others like him must also have the courage of their convictions and not simply keep quiet as the magnificent Sarabhai-Dhawan edifice gets “systematically dismantled”, Ramesh said.
The Congress on Friday had hailed ISRO for the successful launch of the country’s first-ever imaging satellite in geo-orbit and accused the Modi government of undertaking a “radical role reconfiguration” that will “change the very character” of the Indian space agency.
The opposition party had said the launch would also undoubtedly be a big morale booster to the space agency “since it has found itself under attack from various quarters”.
ISRO on Friday made its way into history books yet again with the successful launch of the country’s first ever imaging satellite in geo-orbit, placing the over 2,300 kg payload into a precise orbit using a GSLV rocket.
Friday’s launch marked the space agency’s maiden success for the year 2026.
The Congress last month had accused the Modi government of “strangulating and emasculating” ISRO and slammed it for pursuing an “aggressive privatisation agenda” for the space programme.
ISRO was founded in 1969, with Sarabhai, instrumental in its conce.
