New Delhi: The Indian Space Research Organisation has asked the director of its Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad to move to Bangalore as an "adviser", a directive that one official has described as an "elevation" but others are viewing as unusual.

Tapan Misra, director of the SAC and a distinguished engineer who has designed key payloads for Indian satellites and helped sections of Indian industry develop critical satellite components, has been asked to move to the Isro headquarters as a senior adviser.

Misra declined to comment, but an Isro official in Bangalore told The Telegraph that the transfer was an "elevation" that would enable his expertise to be used for all centres and not just concentrated on the SAC.

But another Isro official who requested not to be named said the position of an adviser in the headquarters was new and the tasks assigned undefined.

The SAC website indicates that Misra, while director SAC, also heads Isro's office of innovations management at the space agency's Bangalore headquarters.

Misra, 56, had joined the SAC in 1984 after graduating in electronics and telecommunications engineering from Jadavpur University. Over the past three decades, he has designed antennae and remote-sensing payloads, among other instruments, for multiple satellites.

The transfer order has given rise to speculation within Isro whether it has anything to do with Misra's seniority in the space agency. He is a likely candidate for the position of the next chairman of Isro.

But the transfer as an adviser to the headquarters might scuttle that chance because the Isro chairpersons have traditionally been picked from among directors of the agency's space centres.