Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa State Industries Association president DamodarKochkar attacked the lackadaisical attitude of the State government and has charged the Chief Minister of forgetting his promise.
“It was not at all surprising to see Goa going down to 24th place in recent Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) rankings. Reacting to our concern CM had announced that once he comes out of isolation he will fix a meeting with all the stakeholder on 18th or 19th of September to improve EoDB. But like all other political assurances this also seems to have been forgotten,” Kochkar said.
He added, “He did call me on 16th September but no further action from his side. It looks like industry is also at the bottom of his priority list.” In the latest EoDB ranking Goa slipped from 19 to 24 in the all India list.
The GSIA president went on to add that the industry is currently struggling to survive in this pandemic, as the market is down, there is shortage of manpower and raw materials, payments are not coming in time, employees are getting infected by Covid and there is loss of working man hours.
“It is becoming extremely difficult for Goan MSMEs to make their ends meet. Struggling to pay salaries, bank premiums and interests. We were expecting this government to support us during these trying times. Now forget about giving any financial assistance, on the contrary government is bent to make our life more miserable. It looks like all our shouts are falling on deaf ears,” Kochkar said.
The statement released to the media added that last year during the launch of Vibrant Goa, the Chief Minister had announced that anyone who wants to start a business in Goa will get all required permissions and approvals immediately and they can start businesses within a month. He had also spoken about sharpening powers of the Investment Promotion Board (IPB) to make it more effective and deliver what it was supposed to do, but this has turned out to be one more hurdle.
Livid over inaction from the government, Kochkar said, “The CM also had announced other support in various other forums like reducing of raw water supply rates, improving of e-governance, infrastructural improvements etc.None of the above have happened so far and on the contrary this government is adding more hurdles like bringing out amendments to Industrial Dispute Act, Factories & Boilers Act, which is absolutely not necessary in this times.”
“I really fail to understand what this government is really up to, already mining and tourism industries have come to standstill. Do they want to chase away manufacturing industries also?” Kockar asked in conclusion.