No 'fiasco' on S-band deal: ISRO ex-chief

A former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief today said there has been 'no fiasco' on the S-band spectrum deal between the space agency's commercial arm Antrix Corporation and a private company, and accused the media of communicating the issue to the public without properly analysing it.

"All I can say was, there is no fiasco. Many things happen in the country, success or fiasco is media created. The media have not properly analysed the S-band spectrum deal or properly communicated it to the public," former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan said. Refusing to elaborate, he said the government was seized of the matter and everything that was going on in the organisation.

Kasturirangan, a Planning Commission member was on a visit to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in the city. On ISRO's future missions, he said ISRO planned eight to 12 missions in the next two to three years and added that "the continuing success in these missions would justify ISRO's capability and reassert its importance".

On February 17, the government had scrapped the S-band spectrum deal between Antrix and Devas Multimedia on grounds of strategic interest and said it was prepared to face legal consequences. The Cabinet Committee on Security annulled the contract Antrix had entered into with Devas Multimedia in January 2005, under which it was to lease out 90 per cent transponders on two of ISRO's satellites — GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A.

Under the agreement, Devas was to lease transponder capacity from the two satellites at a cost of Rs 1,350 crore over 12 years.