The Goa IT Professionals (GITP) have an understandable grouse. They have made suggestions to the government on what the Goa IT policy should include, but they claim that their suggestions are not being incorporated by the government. They say that the intent to promote IT industry in Goa is not translating into any concrete plans from the government. Here is a group of professionals that wants to get involved in framing policy for the development of the IT sector in Goa. Being in the field, not just in Goa, but in other States and even across the globe, these men and women who have got together for Goa, would be in the best possible position to plan and strategize for the State in their specialized field. Yet, instead of encouraging this group of professionals, the government is hardly even giving them a hearing.
Planning policy has always remained in the hands of the bureaucrats and the politicians. Experience has shown that in many instances the final policy document that is published contains little other than a string of promises, that when carefully analyzed is a poor excuse for a policy. It is a product that has been brainstormed by a group of babus and men and women who lack political vision but are adept at political machinations. The fact that the government is in the process of formulating an IT policy but is yet to act on the suggestions of the GITP is an indication of the bureaucratic hurdles and political lethargy that marks government work.
In the IT industry there can be no procrastination. Here is where the GITP can help the government, by putting some life into the system, speeding up the process and giving Goa a policy that would contain what the industry feels is necessary for the development of the IT industry in the State. But the government appears to want none of it. It prefers the same slow approach to policy making, where bureaucracy and politics decides what foes into the document.
Is it any wonder that the IT industry in Goa lags behind? When there is a government that is totally unresponsive to the needs of the industry the GITP has reason to feel frustrated and give vent to their feelings. They appear to have the best interests of Goa when they talk of the policy. They want an IT policy for a ‘locally sustainable IT industry with focus on Goans prospering in Goa’. That statement surely should resonate and identify with the local population that wants to keep Goa as Goan as possible and that would include keeping the Goan in the land.
The Vice-President of the GITP, in an interview with Herald, made a relevant point regarding the IT industry and the brain drain. He said there has been an ‘all round misunderstanding on how the IT industry would have transformed Goa into an intelligent and progressive State strengthening our local culture and identity by minimizing our brain drain of the past two decades’. There is an abject lack of opportunity in today’s Goa across all industry. While the concentration has been on tourism, to some extent pharmacy and earlier mining, other industry and services have not been given enough of a push. As a result, every year the number of young Goans leaving the State and going to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and even abroad in search of jobs is increasing. This is even in industry or services that could have been promoted in Goa. Take for instance the number of Goan youth employed in a service spawned by the IT revolution the BPO business. Today, especially in Bengaluru, there are a number of Goans working in BPOs because of their expertise in the Portuguese language. Had these BPOs set up base in Goa, all those currently working in them in Bengaluru and in other States would have stayed back.
The State has to listen to the professionals in the IT industry. They are the best persons to tell the government which road to take so that Goa and Goans can get onto the IT highway.
