NEW DELHI: To promote space diplomacy, Prime Minister

, who reached

on a two-day visit on Saturday, inaugurated a ground station in

as part of the

Satellite or Saarc satellite programme. India had launched the Rs 405-crore Gsat-9 communicaton satellite on May 5, 2017 as a “free gift” to Saarc members — minus Pakistan.

While some Saarc countries like Sri Lanka are capable of installing space infrastructure on their own to access satellite data, India is helping countries like Bhutan in setting up ground station as part of its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.

Talking to TOI, Isro chairman K Sivan said, “The ground station in Thimphu was set up by Isro with its funds. It was installed after an agreement our external affairs ministry signed with Bhutan some time ago. The station, which is now operational, is being inaugurated by PM Modi.”

Sivan said Isro had conducted a workshop in December last year which was attended by representatives of all Saarc countries —Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan— as part of the satellite programme. “We provided them all the information in setting up infrastructure and demonstrated how the satellite works,” he said.

The Isro chief said, “Discussions are currently going on with Nepal, Afghanistan and Maldives to set up a ground stations in their countries for accessing satellite data.”

Besides its use for communication and disaster management, the satellite provides crucial information on tele-medicine, tele-education, banking and television broadcasting opportunities. It is also equipped with remote sensing technology, which enables collection of real-time weather data.

Like the Saarc satellite, India, as part of the space diplomacy, has also started working on UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training by ISRO (UNNATI) programme, to train space scientists of countries that are not capable of developing and launching their satellites.

India’s strategic move has come at a time when China has set up an advanced satellite tracking centre and astronomical observatory in the Tibet autonomous region. Beijing is using this facility to track Indian satellites and other space assets.