About 208 acres of land being acquired by ISRO in ₹1,194-crore plan

Spaces that produced the iconic HMT watches in Bengaluru and Tumakuru for over 50 years are set to change hands and will start ticking again, this time for satellite, launcher and planetary missions.

About 208 acres of land belonging to public sector HMT in the two locations are being acquired by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a ₹1,194-crore plan to expand and decongest its facilities across the city.

The Bengaluru-based space headquarters, which is doubling its yearly quota of satellites and launch vehicles, wants to shift, expand or reshuffle operational facilities in the city to these locations.

This could be one of ISRO’s big expansions in recent years since it took up around 500 acres in the multi-agency ‘science complex’ at Challakere, about 200 km away.

ISRO needs space for future plans and resources are never sufficient, ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar told The Hindu. “Many of our facilities in Bangalore are located in the centre of the city and have got saturated. We were looking at new options when [the HMT] opportunity came up. We need space, especially for recent activities in which we have involved industry in assembling spacecraft.”

Two such satellite projects are going on at ISITE [ISRO Spacecraft Integration Test Establishment] in Marathahalli in the East. A solar cells venture with BHEL is in the offing.

ISTRAC, which tracks and controls remote sensing, planetary and navigation missions from Peenya in the West, may need additional systems in phases to control an increasing number of future satellites. They may be put up in the new locations as “Peenya is fully boxed in and there is no scope to expand”. A decade ago, it had to set up the Deep Space Network at Byalalu, around 30 km away.

“We have a general idea about using this land. We will take stock of the entire issue and work out a specific plan of action to see how we can make any change” in locating old and new activities, Mr. Kiran Kumar said.

Three-month process

HMT chairman and managing director S. Girish Kumar said in an e-mail reply: “The time schedule to finalise the [land transfer] process is within the next three months subject to receiving payments” from the buyer.

HMT will survey the land with ISRO and issue allotment letters after selling machinery and moveable property at its factories. They include factory buildings, townships and sheds, while a small part has been encroached upon.

ISRO offered the highest price for all three parcels when HMT announced sale of land last year. The government had closed the loss-making watch factory before that. The Union Cabinet cleared the land sale to ISRO on March 31. A one-acre parcel went to GAIL for ₹34 crore.

Of the 11 centres in the city, including the headquarters, satellite activities are split between ISAC and its second campus ISITE. A unit of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre is nearby in the East. Its sensors unit, the Laboratory for Electro-Optical Systems, is near ISTRAC.