What Is 'Zero-Based Budgeting' Strategy That Helps ISRO Keep Space Missions' Costs So Low?

On August 23rd, the success of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission made India the first country in the world to land on the moon's south pole. The historic moment also put focus on ISRO's low cost of operations and high efficiency, given that the Chandrayaan-3 mission was carried out at a budget of just Rs 615 crore, which is lower than many Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

So, what is the reason behind ISRO's low expenditure compared to its counterparts like NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia's Roscosmos, the China National Space Administration (CNSA), etc.?

ISRO's 'Zero-Based Budgeting' Strategy

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P. Sudarshan, who was recruited for ISRO in 1976 and was responsible for ISRO's budgeting and improving industry relations, explains that the agency's strict practice of zero-based budgeting, coupled with its reliance on securing supplies from Indian companies, helped make its operations cheaper, as per the Moneycontrol report.

For the unversed, zero-based budgeting is when one does not take the previous year's budget as a base for current and future years. The budget estimate is arrived at after starting to calculate from zero.

"That was a technique or principle adopted by us to keep the budgets very tightly controlled. It applied to everything ¡ª general budget, the project budgets, program budgets, budgets for facilities etc.," Sudarshan said.

ISRO's Former Budget Director Gives Further Insights

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When Sudarshan joined ISRO as Chairman of Technology Transfer and Industry Cooperation and Budget Director, the agency had just launched one satellite. It had not launched any rockets. The Satellite Launch Vehicle (known as SLV-3), which was launched in 1979, was still under development in 1976.

Making it harder to import technologies were the sanctions that were imposed by several countries after India conducted its first nuclear test, the Smiling Buddha (also known as Pokhran 1), in 1974.

Sudarshan explains that the emphasis on procuring supplies from domestic players was a result of these sanctions.

"We were concentrating on the Indian industry because we were getting no cooperation from anywhere in the world. Seven countries put sanctions on us. The sanctions were because of our sister organisation, which exploded the nuclear bomb," Sudarshan said, as per the report.

"This helped our budgets because Indian companies were far cheaper compared to international ones," he added. "We allowed the industries, who partnered with us to export with some conditions. We also gave them opportunities. We did market research for them which was very important for industries," he said.

Also Read; Money Lessons We All Can Learn From The Success Of Chandrayaan 3

What ISRO Chairman Said About Chandrayaan-3 Budget

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"No one in the world can do it like we do," said S Somanath, ISRO chairman, who was celebrating Chandrayaan's successful touchdown last Wednesday. "I won't disclose all secrets, otherwise everyone else (can) become cost effective," he said at a news conference last week, as per Reuters report.

Also Read: India's Space Economy To Be Worth Nearly $13 Billion By 2025

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