Bengaluru, Dec. 1: Strongly opposing the Union Government’s move to Indian Human Space programme to Gujarat, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, D. K. Shivakumar, along with the party affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) on Wednesday staged a symbolic protest in front of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) headquarters in the city.
Mr Shivakumar told reporters that the human space flight programme should not be shifted out of the state for any reason.
“The Union government is planning to shift the Human Space Flight programme out of Bengaluru, it should not happen. Let the Union Government start any other new project or programme there in Gujarat, but it is not right to shift the programme that was envisaged and operationalised from Bengaluru. Moreover this is an ongoing programme and it is a matter of Karnataka’s pride, we will not allow the Union government to assail Kannadiga’s pride,” he asserted.
Without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister, Amith Shah, he charged the move to shift this programme is purely political to please the bosses from Gujarat. “They first wanted to shift the biennial air-show out of Bengaluru, but withdrew only after Kannadigas protested. People of Karnataka have all the right to know what is the scientific reason behind the plan to shift the programme from Bengaluru,” he questioned.
Also alleging attempts to privatise important national agencies and assets, the KPCC chief said ISRO should not get included in the list of organisations that have been sold to private hands after airlines, hotel and public sector companies, among others. He urged the Union government to come clear on the issue.
ISRO’s Gaganyaan is the first crewed space mission that was first conceptualised in 2004 with a deadline of 2023 and its deadline could not be met due to the outbreak of Covid in 2020. ISRO aims to send two unmanned missions with a three-member crew to orbit and safely return to the Earth after a mission duration of up to seven days by 2023.
With Gaganyaan India can be the fourth country to send a manned mission to space after Russia (then USSR), the US and China. Prior to sending a crew into space, ISRO plans to send two unmanned missions into orbit – first one in 2022 and the second one in 2023. The entire mission is estimated to approximately cost Rs 9023.
Early this week, few media reports appeared suggesting that ISRO had allegedly discussed the possibility of creating a ‘mirror’ control centre in Gujarat as the space agency aims to launch Gaganyaan by 2023 and execute this the ISRO even allegedly launched a ‘feasibility study’ to construct a new module and a possible astronauts’ rehabilitation centre in Gujarat.
As soon as this news went viral, the KPCC president, Shivakumar on Monday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi as well as to Karnataka Chief Minister, Basavaraj Bommai urging them to not to shift ISRO’s Indian Human Space Flight programme from Bengaluru to Gujarat.
In his two-page letter, Mr Shivakumar had also claimed that Kannadigas were very attached and proud of ISRO and will feel betrayed by the ‘shift’. Terming the move ‘ill-conceived, he urged PM Modi to stop it, stating that ‘Kannadigas will feel as if Centre is ignoring them’ and it will have repercussions.
