Telangana has put out its own draft space tech policy, a few months after the Indian government released its space communications policy. These policies claim to encourage the satellite communications industry in India, for applications such as satellite broadband and imagery. "Telangana based entities were responsible for 30% of the parts for the much applauded ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). The state is also leading the way in supporting downstream service providers to build and test solutions such as for agriculture. To further establish Telangana as the go-to location for activities across the space market’s value chain, requisite infrastructure is a necessity and the state endeavours to facilitate the same," the Telangana government said in its draft policy. The draft policy is accepting comments here until October 25. This is the first time a state government has come out with its own satellite policy. Satellite connectivity is overseen by the union government's Department of Communications. States competing with each other to invite private sector participation in a traditionally government-controlled industry may complement the central government's policy efforts to spark industry interest. What the policy sets out to do The policy sets the following priorities, and this is how it plans on achieving them: Access to infrastructure: To enable access to infrastructure, the state government plans on leveraging state-owned supply chains and research capacities to reduce reliance on imports. A pay-per-use model for prototyping technology owned by the state will be devised. Public-Private Partnerships will be entered into for manufacturing small satellites,…
