Herald: As a businessman from the younger generation what do you think are the challenges being faced by anyone who wants to set up a business?
Vikram Verlekar: There’s a huge lack of basic infrastructure such as electricity and water, red-tape prevalent at all levels and the seed funding necessary to take the business to the next level. Procurement of land is another huge challenge. We must also be investment friendly.
H: What kind of industry would you like to see set up operations in the State and why?
VV: Information technology enables services to simplify business processes. Setup BPOs since a huge section of Goa has good communication skill; shared office space buildings with support services for start-up firms and firms that want to enter Goa. For example, REGUS has ready-to-use office spaces in Pune and Mumbai with a conference room, internet, cubicles, telecoms, shared pantry and other amenities and a fixed amount is paid depending on the number of people. Lastly, Non-polluting small scale units since Goa now thrives on tourism.
H: The problem of land is very sensitive in the state, how would you sort this problem out?
VV: Educate the people who protest anything and everything in the interest of the common man. Justify to them how it can help Goa or India genuinely in the long run such as creating jobs, improving the economy, sustainable development etc. Also encourage to have small industrial units that don’t pollute.
H: What changes would you like to see in legislation to ease the system of setting up business in the State?
VV: Our government must be pro-active like Gujarat. Red-tapism must be eliminated. Every entrepreneur when he’s in the process of setting up a business must not have to hear the sentence “what’s in it for me”. In areas where panchayats are not required the municipality must take over.
All the basic infrastructure to start a small or big business should be made possible quickly and smoothly without any illegalities involved.
Non-collateral financing must be introduced to entrepreneurs so that the entrepreneur can work on setting up their innovation into production.
Introduce professional institutes that encourage innovation, life skills, the art of negotiations and selling, trade-marking, patent etc all under one roof. We must encourage capitalism.
H: The power supply in the State is not regular, what you think needs to be done to sort this problem out?
VV: Entrepreneurs’ and business houses’ worst nightmare is the constant electricity outage or constant electricity fluctuations. We have to tap or find ways to generate our own electricity. I would suggest the government to generate electricity from waste recycling that produces methane gas which can be used for electricity generation within Goa. We have to be self reliant and use Karnataka as a source of backup.
H: What would you do to encourage entrepreneurship among the youth?
VV: We need skilled labour. So we need to have maximum institutes providing this knowledge.
