Soon after the launching of IT Policy of 2015 in May this year, and later shot down, the Government of Goa will soon be coming out with fresh new and more dynamic policy. Hopefully.
Suggestions for this have already poured in from different quarters, which includes private start-ups and the Advisory Committee formed by the Department of Information and Technology, Government of Goa.
This has become almost mandatory for Goa, as the State generates 2586 IT professionals every year from six different IT colleges, managed by Goa University, Goa Board, Directorate of Technical Education, etc. Hardly 10 per cent of these pass-outs get jobs in Goa. These graduates are forced to move to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangaluru, Manipal etc for jobs.
“Next year is election year for Goa. The government must immediately discuss with existing units and convince them to expand their base in Goa and also ensure that incentives promised in past IT policy of 2005 should be respected as Government is a continuous process, irrespective of the political party which comes in the government,” said Nitin Kunkolienker, Vice President, MAlT and Member Director of Smartlink Network Systems Ltd. Mr Kunkolienkar is also in the seven-member Advisory Committee on IT.
What Goa urgently needs is a government-aided incubation center with incentives for start-ups. A two-member delegation of the Advisory Committee met the chairman of the Committee, the IT Minister of Goa, Laxmikant Parsekar who also is the Chief Minister of the State. Both Nithin Kunkolienker and M N Vidyashankar, president IESA placed suggestions before the chairman following which the government of Goa took the decision to set-up an incubation center at Udyog Bhawan expected to be ready for use by February 2016.
Secretary and director, IT, Government of Goa, Shilpa Shinde while talking to Herald said that Government of Goa will soon be coming out with a new IT policy and there is lot to be done in the field of IT, especially to bring in synergy in the efforts which are being done in this sector by various players. “Andhra Pradesh government has recently come up with synergy in e-governance which has a set of protocols. This unified architecture has ensured that there is no duplication of data. In fact, the Andhra Pradesh government is willing to pass on this technology to Goa and as of now, its feasibility in Goa is being looked at.”
Meanwhile, the Goa government is looking into ambitious projects of IT Park at Chimbel, near Kadamba Plateau and Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) at Tuem. “About 2.9 lakh square meters of land will used for these projects and a consultant – JLL Consultancy has already been appointed by the government which will give its recommendations and models to the government by December this year. The project will take a maximum of three years to come up,” said Ms Shinde.
Chairman of Info Tech Corporation of Goa, Subhash Phaldesai told Herald that, “We are happy that the work has started. The progress is seen as the departments of power and water are working to provide the basic facilities of power and water in the area. I am happy to see that the IT minister who happens to be our Chief Minister is reviewing all these projects regularly and in a span of every ten days.”
However, Margao-based IT professional like Cicero Silva, Director of Crecio Interactive who has been a keen observer of IT development in Goa said, “the major problem is finance. None of the banks (I have been to at least 15 different banks) will give us loan the moment they get to know that we are into software business. However, they are willing to loan a hardware manufacturing companies. The sad part is that 90 per cent of all start-ups in Goa are into software development and all are bereft of seed capital.”
Mr Silva further went on to say that IT industry in Goa is like a ‘stationary wheel’ and there is no synergy. “It is like five different blind men feeling and describing and elephant. We are way behind and IT industry elsewhere is getting saturated while Goa is yet to take off.”
