September 20, 2023
Santanu Sen’s speech during the discussion on “India’s glorious space journey marked by successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3” in the Rajya Sabha
Thank you, respected Chair. First of all, I would like to wish my previous speaker, Prakash Javadekarji, a good ministerial berth in the coming reshuffling, the way he was praising Modiji’s Government. It is because after 2024 Parliament elections, there would be no chance at all. Yes, I am coming to the subject. Sir, as we all know, the Indian National Committee for Space Research, that is, INCOSPAR was set up in 1962. It was superseded by I.S.R.O. in 1969. But I have got every doubt, while taking all the credit to their own account, the Treasury Bench can loudly speak out and pronounce the full form of INCOSPAR or I.S.R.O. because both start with India. We have seen, being very scared of the I.N.D.I.A. alliance, they are in a mood to remove India from every nomenclature. During landing of Chandrayaan-3, we have seen our learned Prime Minister celebrating sitting in South Africa because he went there to attend the BRICS Summit. Unfortunately, amongst all the BRICS countries, India is paying the lowest possible GDP for science and technology. That is only 0.6 per cent in comparison to that of America, which is 3 per cent; China, which is 2.4 per cent and South Korea, which is 4.5 per cent. I would cite some examples to show the real concern of our Government of India as far as I.S.R.O. is concerned. The funding of I.S.R.O. for 2022 was Rs.13,700 crores. For 2023, it has come down to Rs.10,530 crores. So far as the budgetary allocation is concerned, the Budget allocated in the Financial Year 2024 is only Rs.12,544 crores. It has been slashed down by 8 per cent if you compare it with the previous allocation. My previous colleague was talking about enormous development in science and technology in the country. Of course, that is why, during Covid, we had to keep faith on ‘thali bajao’ and cow’s urine to get rid of Covid. That is the ultimate example of science development and science and technology in our country. I will tell you that our State of Bengal has played a significant part in the historic feat. 31 scientists were there from Bengal. Shri Anuj Nandi from Islampur of West Bengal was not just a part of Chandrayaan-3 mission team… …but he also worked as the Chief Designer of the camera that was attached to the primary body of Chandrayaan-3. I would like to let the House know a very important information. There is a person in Jharkhand whose name is Deepak Uprariya. He was an expert of I.S.R.O. Now, there is a photograph in my mobile which has been published in a very renowned newspaper. He is selling idlis on the road because he, like many others, is not getting their salary for 18 months. He has a bank loan of Rs.4 lakhs. He has kept all his wife’s ornaments on mortgage to earn his livelihood. This is the great development of our Government. I would like our learned publicity masters to see to it. Another important point is this. In Chandrayaan-2, two women, Shrimati M. Vanitha and Shrimati Ritu Karidahl Srivastava, played a very important role in the form of Project Director and Mission Director. But, we have seen, in the case of Chandrayaan-3, there are all males performing in the team. My humble submission to our Government will be: Please try to encourage more and more women in this system. Finally, I would request our Treasury Benches: Please, do not forget the name of Dr. C.V. Raman, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who were the pillars of this institute. My final submission to the Government is this. Yes; we have been seeing many publicity masters who are spending even 85 per cent of a particular project for publicity, who are spending huge and huge amounts of money in building up new buildings which are of hardly any necessity. But I.S.R.O., the pride of our nation, is severely ignored by our Government. My humble submission would be this. Yes; try to take the credit of this Chandrayaan-3 but, at the same time, please look into it that another Deepak Uprariya does not come on the field and sells idlis because of your neglect. Thank you very much, Sir.
