India’s federal cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the transfer of 10 in-orbit communication satellites from Government of India  to NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), a wholly owned public sector enterprise under the administrative control of the Department of Space.

The cabinet has also approved increasing the authorized share capital of NSIL from Rs.1000 crore to Rs.7500 crore.

Transfer of these assets to NSIL will further provide the desired financial autonomy to the company to realize capital intensive programmes/projects, thereby offering huge employment potential and technology spin-off to other sectors of the economy, an official government statement said Wednesday.

This approval is expected to trigger domestic economic activity in the space sector and increase India’s share in the global space market.

The space sector reforms mandated NSIL to undertake end-to-end commercial space activities and function as a full-fledged satellite operator.

Functioning as a single-window operator, it will also facilitate the ease of doing business in the space sector. NSIL Board will now be empowered to price the transponders as per market dynamics and global trends in the satellite sector.

NSIL is also authorized to offer and allocate capacity as per its internal policies and guidelines.