When you say "ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers" who are you comparing with? SpaceX/NASA?
ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries?
"It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce."
It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits.
"BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1]"
Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads.
"All in all, small launches are a very active market."
ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.
I was comparing to Indian salaries. For example, as you're probably aware, the outsourcing industry has caused a rapid rise in computer engineering salaries in India. A similar thing happened in Russia already.
I only referred to small launches because you mentioned them.
But you just can't compare private company salaries with government salaries. The perks that are enjoyed by government employees far outweighs that enjoyed by private employees. You might be tempted to think that private employees get "x" times more than government employees and they should be better. But that is not how it works in India. If you are a private employee there is a possibility of getting fired. If you are fired, getting a job again is akin to going through hell. If you have a home loan from a bank you are doomed.
Government employees in India are the blessed lot. They of course have lesser salary but the perks they enjoy more than make up for it. They get free housing for life, pension after retirement, free insurance, they can purchase land at extremely subsidized rates (which for a private employee would be his entire life savings). You just can't compare salaries. Especially in a country like India.
EDIT: Not to mention: If you are a government employee your social life is set. You can easily get married (not easy for a private employee. You have to be in a top MNC and earning a big salary or have a graduate degree from a top-tier university in India). Your entire family is covered by Government insurance for lifetime (which for a private employee ends as soon as his employment terminates). In some cases, your next kith and kin are guaranteed a government job in case you pass away prematurely.
Also, a Government job is the most sought after in India. There is major competition to get a government job (I have even heard of cases where people bribed officials to get the job). Private employees on the other hand demand greater salaries just to be on par with government employees (whose salary + perks are far greater than private employees salary). Apart from that, a Government employee cannot be prematurely terminated (even if s/he is lazy) unless s/he has committed a grave crime.
Well the tech salary a decade ago was slightly greater than government employees. Today, it is again slightly greater than government employees. According to your logic there should have been great disparity between salaries over a decade. It is not so.
In that period of 10 years, the government employees had 3 payscale revisions with each revision bringing them almost on par with the average salary of private employees. I don't see that trend stopping anytime soon. 10 years from now, government employee salary will again be almost on par with average salary of private employees.
So whatever you try to say it won't change the fact. Government jobs are stable (You can't be fired as easily. You will be transferred instead), you get freebies that you would never get as a private employee and not to mention post-retirement support from the government. You get subsidized land rates, cheaper home loans through your own co-operative society (for example: google "ISRO Layout" which was formed only for ISRO employees). All those employees got the land at very cheap rates. Today it is prime land worth close to half a million dollars (See: http://www.99acres.com/residential-land-plot-for-sale-in-isr...). When they bought the land, they just had to pay a few thousand dollars. Try buying land in India as a private employee and you'll see your hard earned savings vaporizing in thin air.
ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries?
"It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce."
It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits.
"BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1]"
Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads.
"All in all, small launches are a very active market."
ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.