PANJIM: The manufacturing sector in the state is stagnant at 35% according to a GCCI report released earlier this year. It was a damning indictment of the state of affairs. In an attempt to kick start the process of improving this situation and more importantly create jobs the government decided to prepare an investment policy. More importantly the government also decided to set up an Investment Promotion Board.
This policy envisages 50,000 jobs and Rs 25,000 crore investment in the next five years. The IPB with the CM as the chairman would be the one point contact authority for all investments in Goa, especially those above Rs 5 crore and where the area requirement of land is equal or above 3000 sq mtrs. The projects below Rs 5 crore would be looked after by board’s sub-committee headed by vice chairman — the Minister for Information Technology. The state would look for greenfield investments in fields as diverse as knowledge based industry, R&D and financial services, pharma & bio-tech, education, tourism, light engineering, aviation, aerospace , defense, IT hardware, electronics and agro-based and food processing industries.
This is vital in a state which has not seen any substantial investment in manufacturing in the last 5-7 years.
Consequently, no new job opportunities were being created and educated Goan youth have to go out of state and the country to find jobs. The Industries minister Mahadev Naik revealed that between 2012 and January 2014, only 9864 jobs were created in the Industrial sector, while 298 workers lost their jobs. In addition 23 industries shut operations. Now with a CEO set to be appointed for the IPB, this states well wishers will hope that he succeeds in attracting new investments that will provide employment and keep the youth from migrating to other states or foreign lands.
