By Venkatesh Nayak
In an era where transparency is a constitutional duty, the Department of Space seems to be prioritising secrecy over accountability. Two recent RTI attempts reveal how its commercial arm, New Space India Limited (NSIL), and authorisation body IN-SPACe are stonewalling legitimate public interest queries by citing dubious exemptions, shielding beneficiaries of taxpayer-funded space technology from public view.
In March 2025, the Department of Space informed Parliament that NSIL had signed 75 technology transfer agreements with private entities and onboarded unnamed firms to build Earth Observation satellites. It also announced a satellite-based plan to monitor 1 lakh fishing vessels. An RTI application was filed seeking details on the private beneficiaries of ISRO’s publicly funded technologies and the policy behind the surveillance initiative.
What followed is a textbook example of how public institutions frustrate transparency. The RTI application addressed to NSIL sought details of Indian industries involved in satellite construction and technology transfer, copies of the agreements signed, and policy documents governing the fishing vessel surveillance plan. The request was firmly rooted in the principle that information about publicly funded projects and agreements should be disclosed proactively, without requiring formal requests.
Yet, the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of NSIL refused to share even the names of the private entities. Citing national security and commercial confidentiality, the CPIO withheld the information in its entirety. The portion of the query concerning the fishing vessel was transferred to the Department of Fisheries, which, unfamiliar with the satellite-based initiative, responded with unrelated guidelines under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana—highlighting bureaucratic disarray, or perhaps, deliberate obfuscation.
A first appeal was filed against the denial of information on ISRO tech beneficiaries and the improper transfer of the fishing vessel query. The appellate order is awaited.
A second RTI application was submitted in May 2025, this time focusing on IN-SPACe, the nodal agency for private sector engagement under the Indian Space Policy 2023. According to a Rajya Sabha reply, 56 private firms had received authorisation to engage in space-based activities. The RTI query sought the norms and procedures of the authorisation process, names and contact details of the beneficiaries, details of the technologies transferred, and terms and financial payments involved. Again, these are questions of clear public interest: which companies are receiving publicly funded technology, at what cost, and under what conditions?
But IN-SPACe’s CPIO declined to divulge most of this information, citing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed with the private entities. Curiously, the CPIO even failed to correctly cite the exemption clause—mentioning “Section 8(d)” instead of 8(1)(d)—displaying a lack of rigour. Moreover, he refused to transfer the financial information query to NSIL, though he had the power and responsibility to do so under Section 6(3) of the RTI Act.
Meanwhile, on June 8, the Ministry of Defence announced that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) transferred the technologies of nine critical systems to 10 industry partners. All 10 companies were named in a press release by the Ministry of Defence.
The question is if the DRDO can make the names of private entities public to which it has transferred defence-related technology, why should another public entity, NSIL, be exempt from the same standard? Transparency in such matters should be consistent across all public institutions, especially when they involve the transfer of public-funded technology.
Blanket rejections citing NDAs and commercial confidence are ushering in a troubling precedent. If all government-private deals are allowed to hide behind such claims, the Right to Information framework risks becoming hollow. The law was designed to ensure transparency, especially when public interest is at stake. However, that principle is increasingly being sidelined, with safeguards meant to protect public accountability routinely ignored,
What is at stake is not just names and figures – it’s a public oversight of a vital, tax-payer funded sector. ISRO’s achievements were built entirely with public money. The shift toward privatisation via NSIL and IN-SPACe marks a major policy change. If private firms are profiting from ISRO’s work, citizens have a right to know who they are and on what terms.
If the identities of beneficiary firms, the financial terms of technology transfer and the policy documents guiding such engagements are kept hidden, how can the public evaluate whether the process is fair, equitable, and in the national interest?
What’s more troubling is the invocation of national security in cases where no such justification is warranted. Building Earth Observation satellites or tracking fishing boats are civilian applications with no direct connection to classified defence activities. Using “national security” as a cover for lack of transparency not only undermines the RTI Act—it insults its spirit.
These two RTI interventions and the evasive responses highlight the urgent need for systemic reform. IN-SPACe must be notified as a public authority under the RTI Act without waiting for the enactment of the Space Bill. NSIL, in turn, must proactively disclose all technology transfer agreements, ensuring transparency in its dealings involving public resources.
