Insat-3A will become operational by the end of May and provide services ranging from telecommunications, television broadcasting, weather forecasting to helping search and rescue operations with crucial information.

The multi-purpose satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation is India's heaviest satellite.

Acknowledging a delay of fortnight in making the satellite operational, ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan told rediff.com in Bangalore on Monday that the launching of the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, scheduled on May 8 from Sriharikota range, had held up the operational activities of Insat-3A.

The satellite was finally placed in the geo-stationary orbit by the Master Control Facility at Hassan in Karnataka during April third week.

The Department of Space, meanwhile, is carrying out price negotiations with various users of the satellite's 12 C-band, 6 extended C-band, and 6 Ku-band transponders.

"All the 24 transponders of Insat-3A are fully booked. At least four transponders will be used by private television channels, including Zee and NDTV, while the remaining will be used by private operators for the Conditional Access System (CAS) broadcasting, Doordarshan, VSAT operators, and telecom service providers," an ISRO official disclosed.

Once the satellite goes into the operational mode, India will have a total of 120 transponders in the Insat series, though the requirement continues to grow from various quarters, including distance education, tele-medicine, weather forecast, and rescue operations.

In addition, about 70 transponders of foreign satellites are in use by different end-users in the sub-continent for bridging the supply-demand gap.

According to ISRO estimates, India will be requiring about 250 transponders in the next couple of years to meet the increasing demand from various utility service providers, including financial and commodity markets at a later stage.

ISRO plans to meet the additional demand from the transponders of the Insat-4A and Insat-4B, to be launched by the Ariane-5 rocket of the European Space Agency between 2004 and 2006.