Are ISRO activities being privatised? Anxious staff seek Govt response

Following the profitable launch of India’s GSLV F-17/EOS-05 area mission on Friday(4th September), workers of the Indian area company ISRO have sought a clarification from the Indian Authorities over the continuing privatisation of sure ISRO actions.

This creator has accessed the five-page letter which worker associations of essential ISRO centres have collectively written to the ISRO Chairman Dr. V. Narayanan, who additionally serves because the Secretary of the Indian Authorities’s Division of House, which operates below the direct supervision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For the reason that yr 2020, the Modi Authorities has been spearheading the “opening up of area sector to personal gamers”, a course of that sections throughout the Authorities-run ISRO have been “anxious and fearful” about. The newest letter displays the rising considerations and unease.

The letter has been signed by 9 representatives of assorted ISRO worker associations linked to main ISRO facilities comparable to VSSC, SDSC, URSC, LPSC, SAC, NRSC, and IPRC. On the strict situation of anonymity, a number of representatives of ISRO workers’ associations confirmed the authenticity of their letter with this creator. They added that their associations represented the considerations of round 5,000 workers, which is round one-fourth(27%) of ISRO’s 18,100 worker headcount.

When this creator contacted him for a response relating to the privatisation of ISRO actions and associated considerations that workers had raised within the letter, Dr. V. Narayanan, ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Division of House, didn’t supply a remark.

“Ultimately, ISRO is not going to make any launch automobiles and won’t manufacture any launch automobiles. That may all be achieved by the personal Sector or Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs),” Dr. Pawan Goenka had mentioned throughout a televised occasion in August 2026. The worker associations’ letter quotes this assertion and says that it had triggered widespread concern amongst serving workers, their households, and 1000’s of younger residents who aspire to a profession within the nationwide area programme.

Dr. Pawan Goenka has been appointed by the Modi Authorities to move the federal government company IN-SPACE, which is supposed to advertise and facilitate end-to-end personal participation within the ISRO-dominated Indian area sector.

Dr. Goenka is an car business veteran who has been heading IN-SPACE since 2021. An IITian with a subsequent Ph.D. from Cornell and a administration diploma at Harvard, Goenka labored on the Normal Motors R&D Centre, Detroit, for 14 years and at India’s Mahindra & Mahindra(M&M) Ltd. for 28 years. He retired from M&M as MD & CEO within the yr 2021, following which he was appointed to guide the Indian Authorities’s IN-SPACE.

The ISRO workers’ affiliation letter mentions the SSLV rocket expertise and manufacturing expertise being bought to Authorities agency Hindustan Aeronautics Restricted(HAL), and the continuing bidding course of for expertise switch of India’s largest rocket, LVM3, and comparable efforts for transferring the expertise of the workhorse PSLV rocket.

The letter additionally cites studies about routine satellite tv for pc manufacturing presumably being moved out of ISRO, and that operation of latest launch infrastructure, together with the Authorities’s House Launch Complicated at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu being opened to personal entities.

In gentle of those developments, the staff’ associations spotlight that such choices or proposals by the Authorities haven’t been accompanied by any corresponding official communication from the Division of House to its workers.
It provides that there was no communication from the Division of House explaining the authorised coverage, its authorized and administrative foundation, its phasing, or its penalties for the present workforce.

The letter cites that ISRO was constructed as a nationwide scientific establishment with public funds, public objective and a public workforce. “Launch-vehicle design, realisation, integration, testing and launch operations usually are not merely ‘manufacturing contracts’. They’re the core competence, institutional reminiscence and strategic functionality of the Organisation,” ISRO employees affiliation defined.

The letter expresses concern that ISRO’s progressive withdrawal from launch-vehicle and satellite tv for pc realisation will tamper with experiments after analysis, shrink in-house work, freeze or cut back sanctioned power, and shut promotion and skill- improvement avenues in technical, scientific, administrative, shops, buy, high quality, security and industrial cadres.

Additional, it says that present workers who’re working below ISRO’s personal amenities could also be rendered surplus, or redeployed, or left with out significant work whereas the identical duties are carried out by personal contractors utilizing publicly developed expertise.

It additionally mentioned that strategic autonomy, high quality assurance, security tradition and accountability which might be inherent to a nationwide area company could also be diluted if core realisation and launch operations move out of public management.

“Common recruitment to Group A, B and C posts – already constrained by vacancies and attrition – will additional decline, denying alternative to meritorious youth who look to ISRO as a profession,” reads the letter. This comes at a time when Indian Authorities information reveals that ISRO faces a human useful resource scarcity: Indian Parliament information from February 2026 confirmed that ISRO has a sanctioned power of 14,108 employees within the Science and Know-how area, of which solely 12,472 are in place, which signifies an 11 per cent useful resource crunch. The Authorities had mentioned it’s enterprise efforts to fill 1,261 of the 1,636 vacancies.

Within the Admin area, ISRO has a sanctioned power of 4,034 employees. Nonetheless, solely 3,057 are in place, which signifies a 24 per cent useful resource crunch. The Authorities had mentioned it’s enterprise efforts to fill 188 of the 977 vacant posts.

The ISRO employees associations emphasised that they don’t seem to be hostile in direction of Indian business, and they don’t seem to be against reputable commercialisation via NSIL (ISRO’s business arm) inside an outlined framework. “The priority is the absence of an official Division of House coverage doc that attracts a transparent line between (i) enabling personal participation and (ii) dismantling ISRO’s personal realisation functionality,” they added.

Additional, they agreed that personal participation in outlined business actions can coexist with a powerful, publicly-owned ISRO. Nonetheless, they burdened that “a coverage that reduces ISRO to a residual R&D boutique whereas the realisation of the nation’s launch automobiles and the operation of its launch infrastructure move out of public arms, can’t be accepted with out debate”.

Know-how developed by ISRO is a nationwide asset. Its switch should be clear, accountable, and in keeping with strategic, security and employment concerns. On such switch of Authorities-developed expertise to personal corporations, ISRO employees associations highlighted that they’ve an earned proper to learn, consulted and guarded. “Pure justice and good administration require that coverage of this magnitude be defined to the workforce by the Division itself.”

The ISRO employees associations requested Dr. V. Narayanan, the ISRO Chief and Secretary, DoS, to situation an official, written clarification addressing their considerations in a time-bound method.

Additional, it wished the Division of House to conduct a structured interplay with the recognised Service Associations on the longer term position of ISRO, staffing, recruitment, amongst others.

The ISRO employees associations emphasised that they had been submitting this illustration to the Authorities in a constructive and democratic spirit. “Our loyalty to ISRO and to the nationwide area programme just isn’t in query. Exactly
due to that loyalty, we take into account it our responsibility to hunt readability earlier than uncertainty hardens into irreversible coverage,” concluded the letter, which sought a written response from the federal government.