HYDERABAD: India will soon enjoy more than 100 Gbps high bandwidth connectivity across the country in the next few years with the launch of three

satellites before the end of next year, said Dr

, chairman of

(

) at the ninth convocation of Gitam (deemed to be university) on Saturday.

"India has the world's second largest

user base. But, our present broadband speed is 76th in the world. Isro has already launched GSAT-19 in June 2017. This year, Isro will launch GSAT-11 and GSAT-29 and early next year, GSAT-20 will be launched. All these are high throughput satellites and together they will provide more than 100 Gbps high bandwidth connectivity across the country which will help bridge the

," said Sivan while addressing the convocation as the chief guest.

According to a press release issued by Gitam, the Isro chairman also received honorary degree of doctor of science during the convocation.

The Isro chairman informed that the government of India has approved Rs 10,900 crore budget for 30 PSLVs and 10 GSLV Mk-3 will be launched in the next four years in addition to more than 50 spacecrafts.

With the government investing more on space research, he told the graduating students that Isro was looking forward to collaborate more with industry and academic. "There is major opportunity for indigenisation of avionics. And, we (referring to Isro) are not only interested to engage with established industries but we also would like to see start-ups taking up the challenge. Isro recently established a capacity building programme office to widen the participation of academia and industry in the space sector," said Sivan, adding that the activities are planned to be coordinated through establishment of space technology incubation centres across the nation.

Three PhD degrees and over 1,017 graduate and post-graduate degrees were awarded during the convocation. Prof K Maruthi Prasad, head of the department of Mathematics and R Radhika, associate professor, GITAM HBS, were honoured with the "best researcher" awards on the occasion.