IN-SPACe centres to come up at more locations: Union Minister

Hyderabad, Jan 7:  The Centre is in the process of opening more IN-SPACe centres at different places in the country and Hyderabad will be one of the proposed venues, said Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of Science, Technology and Space, on Friday.

Addressing the 24th national conference on e-governance, Singh said this in response to a request from K. T. Rama Rao, Telangana's Industry and Information Technology Minister, to set up an Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) in Hyderabad.

Saying that the Centre has already announced two centres in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, Rama Rao urged the Union Minister to sanction a centre for Hyderabad as the city is an important hub for space research.

Jitendra Singh said the Union government has already started unlocking the Indian space sector and started involving private players.

"We are in the process of opening centres at other locations. Certainly Hyderabad would also be in queue waiting for that because the kind of infrastructure they have, the kind of start-up culture which already exists there, we would like to use it for the enrichment of the promotion of space technology in the country," Singh added.

He assured Rama Rao that he would take up the suggestion and work on it as soon as possible.

Stating that India is trying to match the global benchmark, Singh said Telangana will have a major role to play in this.

"I request the state government to be on board with us and we shall be on board with you so that we can ultimately achieve the objective," he said.

KTR, as the Telangana Minister is popularly known, also requested Singh to set up a centre of excellence in space research.

He urged Jitendra Singh to sanction two more electronic manufacturing clusters for Hyderabad as the two clusters set up near Hyderabad were nearing capacity.

KTR requested the Centre to re-look at the Information Technology and Investment Region (ITIR) project for Hyderabad.

"In 2012-13 the previous UPA government had sanctioned ITIR for Hyderabad. Unfortunately the project has been scrapped by the NDA government. We request you (Centre) to have a re-look," KTR added.