Richa Sharma By

NEW DELHI: The wait is over for India. It has finally decided to move on with registration of the SAARC satellite, after Pakistan’s failure of commitment for months. The satellite is scheduled to be launched as per schedule in December this year.

A month after taking over in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that the country will develop a SAARC satellite, which will be a “gift from India”. India will be spending Rs 235 crore on the satellite, which will have 12 transponders and is slated to be launched on the SAARC Day on December 8.

India had convened a meeting of all South Asian countries in June last year to discuss the SAARC satellite and to solve any questions about the project. The workshop brought to the fore the various doubts of the Asian countries, even as there was an agreement that India should go ahead with registration of satellite with the International Telecommunication (ITU).

Officials said while all countries have now indicated their concurrence in principle, Pakistan remains the only outlier. “We will go ahead without Pakistan. There is no point in waiting endlessly. If they want to join later, they can do that,” said a senior government official.

Similarly, a senior ISRO official said it has heard from from all countries, except for Pakistan.

“We have asked all the SAARC countries to provide us with information about use of spatial technology in sectors they are looking at. To take it forward, we also wanted a letter of consent from respective governments. We have more or less heard from all other SAARC countries but Pakistan,” said a senior space scientist.