Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the new privatization reforms which gave the private sector a bigger role in 8 sectors of the economy which were dominated by the private sector before. These are coal, minerals, defense production, aviation, power distribution in Union territories, space and atomic energy. Defense and space are two sectors the government had total monopoly until now unlike countries like the USA where even the private sector could freely work in these industries. In the Defense sector, the government has always and still believes that the defense sector should be supervised by the nation so they limited the role of private companies. The new reforms state that the foreign direct investment limit has been increased from 49% to 74% and the government is working to corporatize (not privatize) the ordnance factory boards.
All activities related to space exploration and satellite launches have been in the control of ISRO with no role in the private sector. But now, the private sector will have an equal role in the space sector or in other words be a “co-traveler”. ISRO will give private industries access to some of its assets and facilities to allow them to increase their capacities. In the future, policies will be introduced which will open up private industries to conduct their own planetary explorations and satellite launches. These policies are the next step for making of an “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”. How are these effective you ask? Well, the best example would be the Defense and Space industry in the United States. In the U.S, private industries play a major role in these two sectors which lead to the United States of America being the leader of these two industries all over the world. Hopefully, a similar outcome can be expected in India which will result in India being a leading force all over the globe.
