The wheels have begun moving to make Goa one of the country’s most favoured and top IT destinations in India, and IT Minister Rohan Khaunte has given himself a deadline of five years to achieve this. A Start-Up Policy in on the anvil and a team from the State will be fanning out to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, States that have taken great strides in the IT sector, to learn more about their IT model and determine how Goa can improve its business and industrial environment so as to attract IT start-ups to the State.
While a host of other States are far ahead of Goa in the IT sector, and discussions in the past have veered to arrive at the conclusion that Goa had missed the IT bus, Khaunte believes that it is not so and all Goa has to do is just catch it – the speeding IT bus. But that’s not going to be an easy task. Though the minister, by his statements, has displayed a positive attitude towards achieving the target set, there is much to do before it can actually be realised. As has been pointed out, IT has grown in States where the environment for its growth has been created, and it is that environment that is missing in Goa. In the minister’s own words, ‘policies were outlined but things were not defined’ in the IT sector. It is time now to outline, define and implement the policies, if that bus is to be caught.
As a first step, and one that the State is in dire need of, the Start-Up IT policy is expected to be released sometime this month. It may be in the final stages of preparation, but the policy needs to be structured, if not already so done, in such manner that it will not only boost the prospects of Goa as an IT start-up destination, but also ensure that local, talented youth get jobs in the sector. The Start-Up Policy has been in the making over the past months and stakeholders have been invited to make suggestions and assist with inputs to make the policy more competitive and industry oriented. Once the policy is ready, Goa will be one of the few States in the country to have such a policy in place, giving it an edge over many others.
But, while it is always a good thing to have a policy, the same effort that is being put in drafting it, should be put in getting it implemented and making it work at the ground level, without which it will be a failure.
Yet, even as the government races ahead in getting onto the IT bus, it has also succumbed to the protests of the villagers of Loliem in Canacona to shift the IIT that was proposed to come up in the village to elsewhere. Ironically, a few days after this decision to shift the institute was taken, a boy who studied in a school in the taluka, had qualified for the IIT. The irony couldn’t have been greater, as this highlights the loss of Canacona taluka and of the people in the village. While it has been a matter of pride for villages and communities when one of theirs is admitted to the IIT, the opposition to such an institute is begs an explanation.
And here the government has to play its cards well. While it takes forward its plan to make Goa an IT hub, it should also stay firm on decisions taken, especially on those that involve locating the business or institutes that show an interest in moving to Goa and not allow undue opposition to the location to force changes in decisions. That could be disastrous to the State’s ambitions in the IT sector.
