Curbing talent exodus: It’s deja vu for Indian Space Research Organisation

While it is in the news that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will issue a memorandum aimed at deterring scientists and engineers involved in important missions from resigning, the space agency is actually reliving a nightmare from the 1990s.

This is perhaps the second time in its history that ISRO has been faced with the task of containing mass exodus. The first example occurred in the early 1990s, when the boom in information technology (IT) and campus recruitment dealt a blow to ISRO, which was then in expansion mode.

“Nobody could have foreseen this. It was a major crisis then. Many senior executives left ISRO for the IT sector,” recalls EK Kutty, who retired as Director (Program Planning and Personnel Policy) from ISRO’s headquarters in Bengaluru in 2005.

In his book

Mr. Kutty, who is currently the president of the UL Space Club, which he founded and mentored, even described ISRO’s ordeal in his book dated August 2025. Kuttikkaalam with ISRO (Mathrubhumi Books).

“It is noteworthy that ISRO’s practice of acquiring the best talent in the country faced a formidable challenge in the last decade of the 20th century. A world-class competitor has emerged on the scene to attract bright engineers in the 22-24 age bracket who were lining up to join ISRO (private IT sector),” Mr. Kutty wrote in his Malayalam book.

It was the period when Bengaluru was fast becoming the IT hub of India. Companies such as Infosys, HCL and Wipro were making major breakthroughs in the industry. At ISRO, the 1990s were also the period of expansion of the space agency, with work on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and satellites at critical junctures. ISRO’s biggest headache on the hiring front was that its process could not hope to match the vibrant campus recruitment model adopted by the IT industry.

recruitment process

“Since it is a government system, public advertisements were mandatory as equal opportunity should be given to all citizens of India. The entire recruitment process could take around eight to nine months,” recalls Mr. Kutty. By then the ‘best minds’ would have been absorbed by private companies. Centralized recruitment to science/technology streams was a major change that ISRO introduced at that time to deal with this crisis. Such measures eventually led to the establishment of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) in Thiruvananthapuram in 2007.

Resignations and voluntary retirements at ISRO are now in the news, with the space agency asking center directors and unit heads not to accept requests “as a matter of routine”, especially from hands involved in missions like Gaganyaan.