Economics and Cost Benefit Analysis of Indian Space Programme 01/01/2025

Humanities

Space programmes all over the globe bring in the scientific, technological, industrial, and security capabilities and have been conceived as important tools used to enhance the socioeconomic development through their use of applications in the civilian domain. In India, the space programme was initiated in the early 1960s with the main objective of using these same capabilities for rapid economic development of the country and these investments are particularly justified based on their socioeconomic returns for larger sections of the society through increased economic activity, cost efficiencies, productivity gains, and inclusiveness to different sectors of the economy. Reaping the demographic advantage of India requires the optimum use of existing resources by using advanced space technologies, which have extensive forward and backward relationships in the economy. Space technology provides the vital applications in several sectors, such as communications, meteorology, natural resource planning, inputs for weather forecasting, and disaster management. The forward connections of space technology help to create innovation, expand knowledge, enhance information given to decision makers, improve governance, generate spin-offs, etc. It stimulates economic activity related to space products and services from satellites, launch vehicles, ground systems, etc. Indirect benefits resulting from space technology over time include improved economic prosperity, health, environmental quality, safety, and security; creation of new capabilities, businesses, products and services derived from space-based applications; enhanced productivity of various sectors; and enriched quality of life in society. The majority of these contributions are multifaceted in nature, intangible in property, and incommensurable in scale. Considering all of these factors, the Department of Space (DoS) decided around 2005 to have the economics of the space programme examined by an expert in the field. Accordingly, this task was entrusted to well-known economic expert Prof U. Sankar from the Madras Institute of Economics. This chapter essentially describes the necessity of economic analysis of the Indian space programme in the light of the study of The Economics of India’s Space Programme, by U. Sankar.