The Hindu Business Line : ISRO still has three centres on US blacklist

THE last three of ISRO centres continue to be on the US Department of Commerce blacklist for US exporters. Only on Wednesday, three other ISRO centres were removed from the "entity" list after years of figuring there under the export licence control regime.

For the space agency, those units still bearing the entity tag are two centres associated with satellite launch activities — Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram; and the satellite launch pad, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

Asked what it means for the centres to be off the tightly-controlled export licence list, senior officials at ISRO remarked, "It technically gives us more shops to shop from. We have been on the blacklist for so long, got used to it and managed without US items for some of our programmes that we have forgotten what it is to be off it."

During the 1990s when ISRO was denied its crucial propulsion technology and hardware for developing launch vehicles, it managed to establish steady non-US alternative sources in Europe and Japan. However, there is no denying that US components cost 20-30 per cent lower than these, saving precious foreign exchange, the sources said.

According to one senior official, "It will definitely have an effect on easing procurements, but the US procedures by themselves are difficult and time taking. Each step is a good progress but it really makes no immediate difference. We have to wait and see."

The latest to come off the list are ISRO Telemetry, Tracking & Command Network ISTRAC at Bangalore; ISRO Inertial Systems Unit IISU at Thiruvananthapuram; and the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. IISS makes control systems for satellites. ISTRAC is the nerve centre for post-launch monitoring and control of satellites during their 10-12 year lifetime. SAC is responsible for developing the crucial payloads on satellites. They were named along with Department of Atomic Energy facilities at Tarapur, Rajasthan and Kudankulam.

Nearly 55 per cent of ISRO's vastly decentralised procurement budget is meant for sourcing from the domestic industry. Launch vehicles are indigenous to the extend of 85 per cent, while satellite components are imported en bloc in small volumes up to 60-65 per cent and ISRO centres assemble the systems at respective centres.

Many ISRO centres along with several Indian public and private sector companies were included as `entities' soon after the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998. The US gradually shortened the list, and removed the ISRO headquarters from it last year after initiating the more India-friendly Next Steps in Strategic Partnership programme.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page