India has a workforce talent that spans across states and major technology hubs. While this remains an advantage in the country, it has also come up as a key bottleneck. According to recent reports, of the 1.5 million engineering graduates, only 0.5% pursued further studies in aerospace. 

Lt Gen AK Bhatt (retd), director general of the Indian Space Association (ISpA), told AIM in an exclusive conversation that the broader engineering base could still serve the space sector. “In space, you have to have multiple expertise in electronics, mechanical, design and other things. Even computers. So all these scientists, all these engineers, can be used in space,” he said.

At a recent panel discussion on self-reliance in space, industry leaders and officials pointed to bottlenecks that keep the country reliant on foreign suppliers, while offering ideas on how to close the gap.

The panel agreed that training a large number of space engineers is vital. One key suggestion was that the country has to train more than 10,000 space engineers across industries.

Lt Gen Bhatt expanded on this point. He noted that while the IITs are prestigious, India’s talent pool runs far deeper. If some of the top graduates move abroad, equally capable students from other institutions step up to fill those roles. 

Hence, he cautioned that funding should not be concentrated only in elite institutions. “The issue is that India does not have a culture of spending money on academia. The government has announced higher funds, but…all the money is going to IITs. It’s not going to other institutes,” he said, stressing that partnerships between a wide range of universities and industry are vital. 

“Our talent is not limited. No doubt, they [IITs] are doing well, but it should also be spread out to others.”

Academia can take projects to the design stage, but industry is needed to manufacture and scale them. Expecting fully finished, commercial-ready products straight out of academia is unrealistic; the solution lies in long-term industry–academia collaboration.

The Subsystem Bottleneck

Experts noted that while India has made progress in launch systems and satellites, gaps remain in the smaller but vital parts. “We are very deficient in sensors, cameras and electronics. But launch vehicle capability, like our PSLV, has been doing great,” Lt Gen Bhatt said.

These components are tightly controlled by global companies. They are costly and subject to supply delays, which hurts Indian missions. As MV Reddy, joint managing director of Astra Microwave Products, explained, “In the Indian space ecosystem, critical vulnerabilities remain at the subsystems and components, notably microelectronics, sensors and advanced materials. These are all largely, in fact, tightly controlled by the global companies, which is leading to dependencies and delays.”

The panel drew comparisons with other countries. The US supports high-risk research through the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), its central defence R&D agency.

Europe uses public-private partnerships and clusters. Israel has created specialised centres for semiconductors and optronics (optic electronics). These examples show how consistent government backing and risk-sharing mechanisms can nurture ecosystems that go well beyond single companies. 

“These are all things which will be followed overseas,” Reddy said, adding that India could adapt some of these models.

An Import Challenge

With India’s space ambitions growing fast, and the country looking at an $8 billion economy poised to increase fivefold in the coming years, there lies a persistent issue with imports. Critical technologies such as sensors, cameras and electronics remain largely imported. 

To achieve India’s goal of achieving a 10% share in the global space economy, the focus is shifting from just building rockets to strengthening the entire value chain. As Nikhil Arora, deputy director at IN-SPACe, put it, “Self-reliance often fails at the subsystem or a component level.”

ISRO chairperson V Narayanan has also previously expressed concern over India’s continued dependency on imported goods. Currently, 90% of the components in ISRO’s launch vehicles are indigenised. The remaining 10% are imported, most of which are just electronics, the chairperson noted. 

“At least in the next five years, the import of electronic components in our country should come down drastically,” Narayanan asserted.

Building a Local Ecosystem

Several suggestions came up for how India could reduce import dependence. One was for the government to act as an anchor customer, ensuring that local firms have steady demand to justify investment. 

Another was to encourage industry-academia collaboration. As Reddy put it, “With the IITs, NITs and economic institutes, they can collaborate with startups and form a research house to develop this company, with the support of the government.”

Others spoke about creating supply chain clusters and investing in automation. Shankar Ghosh, founding director at Shell-N-Tube, said, “This leads us into a lot of development and technology which will help both industries innovate in their chosen area. So this actually makes the nature of the global player, reduces the operation load and provides a clear direction to further rapid turnover in launches for the industry”.

There was also a call to think long-term. Import substitution cannot be done component by component. “This safe place will not come overnight, and we cannot achieve it by replacing imported components one by one. These can be achieved only by creating a strong ecosystem nurturing the Indian SME sector,” Reddy said.

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