Union Budget 2019: ISRO to have a PSU commercial arm soon

As the Indian State Research Organisation is gearing up towards the launch of its ambitious Chandrayaan-2, the government has now announced the setting up a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) as its commercial arm. NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) will serve as the commercial arm of department of space to tap the economic benefits of ISRO's research and development wing. 

Minister of Finance in her budget speech said, "India has emerged as a major space power with the technology and ability to launch satellites and other products in a global low cost level. Time has come to harness it commercially." The NSIL will work towards  commercialisation of various space products including production of launch vehicles, transfer of technology and marketing of space projects. 

Soon after the Chandrayaan-2, ISRO have planned Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (MOM 2) aka  Mangalyaan 2 and the country's first Venus mission Shukrayaan-1, both in 2021.

India's first full-time woman finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden union budget at 11 am on July 5. Sitharaman reached the Parliament an hour ahead of time with the budget document folded in a red traditional cloth sealed with the government seal. Analysts and the media had predicted that her first budget will be focused on the middle class and the poor and that it will take the SoPs presented in the interim budget by Piyush Goyal in February further. Sitharaman has to deal with income tax exemption slabs, unemployment and form a pro-janta budget with the added task of pulling the country out of a five year low. With former Education Minister Prakash Javadekar promising that the government will try its best to spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education and the PM stressing on the youth development and innovation, eyes are on Sitharaman's budget to bring the change.

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