Amid the opening up of the space sector, the emergence of start-ups and Industry linkages, India’s space economy could skyrocket to USD 100 billion in the years to come, as projected by foreign trade experts who are amazed by India's quantum leap, said MoS Atomic Energy and Space, Jitendra Singh.

While starting the capacity building programme on geospatial technology and applications, organised jointly by ISRO and Capacity Building Commission (CBC), he said that India’s Space economy is on the rise, particularly in the last nearly ten years.

"The last ten years have been a watershed period in the scientific transformation in India’s journey since Independence. And as far as the space and geospace and the entire ecosystem is concerned, it is even more visible, more so in the last five years," he said.

Singh said that geospatial technology is being widely used in PM Gati Shakti infrastructure development programmes and SVAMTVA land mapping.

“Space technology is gradually becoming more and more component of India’s overall economy. And I am sure this role of it, in the overall value addition to India’s growth economy, is growing to increase,” he said.

Calling for more synergy between research, academia, startup and industry, the MoS said the ISRO, being a pivotal agency, has appropriately come forward to take this initiative. This will also prove to be a major effort to achieve the ‘Whole of Science, Whole of Nation’ approach.

The Capacity Building programme on geospatial technology and its applications will raise awareness and help motivate the youth to make wider use of it, he said.

“We might require such capacity building programmes more frequently, more extensively. But at least beginning from today we have realised the importance of this, we have tried to institutionalise it,” he asserted.