ISRO bleeds as scientists leave

NEW DELHI: The country's premier space agency — ISRO — is bleeding. Droves of scientists are leaving for greener pastures with the result that ISRO is hiring scientists in a great hurry to replace hundreds of trained hands. Last year, it hired 354 fresh scientists, but 187 trained ones left the organisation. In other words, 53% scientists left ISRO compared to its intake.

The trend is only growing. Against a nearly similar level of fresh recruits in 2004 and 2005 (360 and 346), the number of those who left the organisation was 105 and 100. If you take all three years together, and you get a sense of the high level of attrition. In 36 months, ISRO has lost 392 scientists against 1,060 it has hired. This means almost 11 scientists are leaving every month. These disturbing figures were disclosed by the government in Parliament on Wednesday.

Minister in the PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, told the Lok Sabha that better money offered by private sector was the main reason for the rising attrition rate.

This trend is not unique to ISRO. The government has already admitted that a good number of scientists have quit the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) in recent years and it was finding it difficult to stem the outflow as the monetary incentive outside the government was much higher.

"The stupendous growth of IT and communications sector and the higher remunerative packages offered by the private sector are the main reasons for scientists/engineers to leave ISRO," Chavan said. The Department of Space (DoS), he said, had petitioned the Sixth Pay Commission for higher pay and incentives like performance-based increments and special allowances as one of the measures to retain talent. A similar request was made on behalf of the DAE.

But a Pay Commission source said they had received such petitions from "everyone". "Everyone is dangling the quit threat if salaries are not hiked substantially," he said. "It's too early to say, but we're not sure if all demands can be met, considering the expenses involved. Even if we recommend higher pay scales and a better incentive regime, it is up to the government to accept or reject the recommendations."