New Delhi. Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Department of Atomic Energy and Space Dr Jitendra Singh said that 26 Companies/startups have approached Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) seeking technical guidance and facility sharing for their space activity.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha recently, the Minister said that Government has developed and operationalised the NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) – an independent Indian satellite-based navigation system to provide PNT (Position, Navigation and Time) service to users over Indian region and region extending to about 1500 km around India.

On the issue of whether Indian telecom service providers or manufacturers have started using this home built GPS system, Dr Jitendra Singh informed that Major mobile chipset manufacturers (Qualcomm, Mediatek) have released NavIC enabled mobile processors. Using these processors, mobile handsets with NavIC capability have been released in the Indian market. Also, Government has been successful in incorporating NavIC as part of international telecom specifications for telecom service providers.