ISRO chairman calls for reducing electronic imports, boosting domestic manufacturing

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman V Narayanan on Thursday said the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) should lay down a roadmap to reduce the import of electronics and promote indigenous manufacturing.

He stressed the need to bring down electronics imports to less than 10% in the next five years, stressing that the electronics community must handhold companies to manufacture indigenously.

“When you talk about a launch vehicle today, 90% of it consists of indigenous items, but 10% is still imported. Out of that 10%, 90% consists only of electronic parts,” the chairman said while speaking at the Nano Electronics Roadshow at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru on Thursday.

Recalling his tenure as director of ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Narayanan said that of 34 sensors used for monitoring pressure, temperature and hydrogen levels, only two were indigenously manufactured and the remaining 32 imported.

“I set a rule that after one year, no sensors would be approved for import. Today, I am happy to report that 32 of them have been indigenously developed and are ready for technology transfer,” he said, hoping that within the next 10 to 15 years, the import content of electronics in India should come down drastically.

The ISRO chairman also emphasised the importance of nanotechnology in space applications, without which no space missions are possible.