Did you know the cost of Chandrayaan 2 is less than BBMP’s white-topping project?

New Delhi, Sep 10: India's moon mission Chandrayaan-2 was closely followed by countries across the globe. Why would the major space powers who are far more technically advanced than ISRO be closely watching India's first 'landing on Moon' mission? It was not that Chandrayaan-2 was the first-ever mission to the moon and was also not the first time s rover is being sent there.

What intrigues major space agencies is the cost at which Chandrayaan-2 was executed. The fact that India's Moon mission cost less than BBMP's white-topping project has left many wondering.

Chandrayaan 2, which was built at the cost of Rs 978 crore has only spent Rs 603 crore on the orbiter, lander, rover, navigation and ground support network and Rs 375 crore for the heavy rocket Geo-stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle with an indigenous cryogenic engine that carried Chandrayaan 2 into space. While the BBMP has spent Rs 986 crore for white-topping Bengaluru road.

It was in 2016 that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike issued work orders to two companies, NCC and Madhucon Projects, to concretise 94 km of the road network in the city at a cost of Rs 986 crore.

While a regular bitumen-topped road would cost Rs 3-4 crore per km, and strengthening the road would cost less than Rs 1 crore more per km, white-topping costs around Rs 8-9 crore per km.

To add to it, the civic body has received severe backlash for the slow and haphazard white-topping of the city's roads but that has not stopped the civic body from planning more.

Chandrayaan 2 is also cheaper than a lot of Hollywood movies. For example, the total cost of the Chandrayaan-2 mission is about USD 124 million, which includes a USD 31 million price tag for the launch and USD 93 million for the satellite.

The cost is less than half of the budget of Hollywood blockbuster "Avengers Endgame", which had an estimated budget of USD 356 million.