Soon after the Central government withdrew all tax holidays being offered to industry in Goa, the industrial sector faced a major setback post March 2004. The speed with which the manufacturing industries in the State were flourishing, got a severe jolt as Goa had and has very limited resources.
For Goa to be an attractive destination for industry, the State requires good infrastructure, power, telecommunication alongwith the ease of doing business. Also, industry in Goa does require skilled workforce.
Goa has a total of 22 functional industrial estates. The land exisisting in these industrial estates is about 1,74,18,029 square meters. This does not include the land usage by Zurai Industries, MRF, Metastrips and many other big companies but that land has been given to them by the government.
“I would like to have more and more industries in Goa and the government is already supporting it by forming the Investment Promotion Board. Within a short span of time 71 projects have been cleared and others are in the pipeline. But what we require now is to brush up our distribution systems and networks both in power as well as water sector. Alongwith that telecommunication needs an immediate attention,” Chairman of the Logistics Committee of the GCCI, Chandrakant Gawas told Herald.
As far as the infrastructure needed is concerned, Industrial land in designated estates is still available in pockets. At the same time, efforts are in progress to break the SEZ deadlock which will free up a huge quantity of Industrial land for new investors wishing to enter Goa. In terms of water supply, this is available freely in all Industrial areas and there are plans to augment the supply by interconnecting the distribution networks. For power, the issue observed is in the distribution network and initiatives take such as underground cabling to Industrial areas will help improve the quality of supply further.
Recently the industry bodies have recommended to the Goa government to increase the coverage area in the existing land at industrial estates. At present coverage area is 50 per cent (eg in a 10,000 sq mts plot one can build only upto 5000 sq mts and the rest has to be kept open) but with the need arising, 50 per cent cap is rather stringent. Now there is a recommendation to increase the ground coverage from 50 to 60 per cent. If this gets implemented a sizeable amount of land will become avialable. It is estimated that about 17 lakh square meters will be avialable for use by the increase.
Also, the government is developing new industrial estates and this is expected to bring in another 25 lakh square meters of land for industrial use. This is a significant relief to the industry in the immediate short term. Also about 36 lakh square meters at the moment is frozen with the SEZs and it is under litigation. The recommending committees believe that the government is at present negotiating under which 70 per cent of the land will be released for general use by the industry. If this happens, another 25 lakh square meters of land will be made avialable.
The GCCI committee on Industry has also proposed before the government that to review their open space norms in the industrial estate land. As per the existing norms 15 per cent of the land shall remain open and will belong to the GIDC. The committees in their plea have mentioned that 15 per cent was fine 40 years ago, but now there is a need for more intensive use of land. The demand is bring it down to 7.5 per cent. If this is done, then about 13 lakh sq mts of land will be available. So with all these measures, almost 80 lakh sq mts of land can be made available for development of industry in the state.
“We appreciate that the government is showing much more energy and seriousness to bring-in more land for industrial use. So we are looking at something like 25 lakh sq mts from SEZ, 25 lakh from new industrial plots and another 17 lakh sq mt if the ground coverage area is increased by 10 per cent and another 13 lakh sq mt of land by reduction of 15 per cent open area to 7.5 per cent which remains with the GIDC. These are the measures by which we can overcome and circumvent the so-called shortage of land,” the Chairman of the Industry Committee of GCCI Yatin Kakodkar said.
Meanwhile, the Investment Promotion Board (IPB) has started to move ahead and has till date granted in principle approvals to 71 projects which propose to bring in 7113 crores of investments in various sectors and 14035 expected new jobs of which the condition for approval is 80 per cent of local employment.Out of these approvals, expansion projects undertaken by Industrial majors such as Siemens, Cipla and Commscope have been completed and several new projects are in various stages of approvals and construction.
CEO of IPB, Ashton Godinho said, “The recently announced IT and ESDM policy will go a long way to promote future investments. The specific parks being developed in Chimbel and Tuem will ensure land availability with the necessary power, water and connectivity to ensure hassle free operations. There is significant interest in the IT and ESDM sector with investors already approaching the IPB for getting proposals ready to avail the benefits of the policy. This sector being non polluting and highly skill based, it will be great contributor to the intellectual knowledge bank of the State and coupled with the famed quality of life advantage of Goa, we are poised to be the startup and knowledge hub of the country.”
Even though the government has brought-in three legislations regarding allottment of land, transfer of land and sub-leasing of land by the GIDC and to regulate it, sentiments were expressed that GIDC needs to be more industry friendly than become a road block to interested investors.
Also, Government should look at getting in high value added based industries that result in higher revenue collections, job creation and better salaries for employees. This is the way the government should identify industries.
