Sitharaman: 'ISRO applauded across the globe for its moon mission'

Objecting to Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy dubbing Chandrayaan-2 mission as "failure", Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said in Lok Sabha that the ISRO has been applauded for its moon mission across the globe.

Participating in the debate on supplementary demands for grants, Roy objected to the decision of the government to provide additional funds to the Department of Space and asked it to pull up those responsible for the "failure" of Chandrayaan-2 mission. The crash landing of Vikram on the moon, he said, brought a bad name to the country.

Responding to his remarks during her reply, Sitharaman said he should understand how experiments work in frontal science and questioned "how can you describe hard landing as a failure",

She said ISRO was applauded for its moon mission across the globe and it is unfair that a member is questioning its capability and allocation of funds for the organization.

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Roy's comments evoked a sharp reaction from the treasury benches which wanted him to withdraw his remarks on the Chandrayaan-2.

Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP), who was in the chair when Roy was speaking, said that historically India's space programme has done very well and the member should know about it.

Yesterday, US space agency NASA confirmed that nearly three months ago Chandrayaan-2 mission made a hard landing near the uncharted lunar south pole in the wee hours of September 7.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) attempted a soft landing of Vikram on the Moon. However, ISRO had lost contact with Vikram shortly before the scheduled touchdown.

Roy also regretted that the government was not allocating adequate funds to deal with the agrarian crisis and generating employment.

"The government should free the country of the atmosphere of fear," he said, adding "because of the fear factor the bank officers were not giving loans and officers were not taking decisions". "Fear factor" he further said, was also hampering investment and employment generation. 

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