The government has gently applied brakes on the runaway train that the Investment Promotion Board had seemingly become. It’s notified rules, has made factored the involvement of the cabinet and the industries minister in a manner that checks the unfettered power of the IPB, in virtually declaring an area as investment promotion area, with the government only left to perform the formal act of endorsing it.
The notified rules puts the onus on the cabinet, the Chief Minister and the Industries minister to firm the decision rather than a mere endorsement of the IPB recommendation to declare any area as an investment promotion area, which would result in the overriding of the Town and Country Planning Act and other land, revenue and urban acts. The Municipalities Act, CCP Act, The Panchayat Raj Act, The Land Revenue Code, The Outline Development Plan, The Land Use Map and the provisions of other local Acts, are superseded when the IPB’s recommendations to declare an area as an investment promotion area are accepted. As if this wasn’t enough, even the Regional Plan’s classification and zoning of the concerned land does not hold.
Let there be no illusion that the IPB will continue to be the most powerful body to clear investment proposals, but the notified rules should bring in much needed checks to the absolute power of the IPB. The drafting of the rules, at the very least is indicative that somewhere the truth has hit home. The IPB cannot become a Frankenstein which assumes greater power than the government which has created it
The Cabinet’s approval is now mandatory for declaring or converting land above 25,000 sq meters as investment promotion area under the Investment Promotion Act. For the conversion of land between 15,000 and 25,000 sq meters, the approval of Chief Minister is a must. And for land below 15,000 sq meters, the Industries Minister’s approval is binding. Finally the Industries Minister, who has felt left out of the process in spirit, if not in letter, gets a real foot in the door. This involvement is significant because in the event of areas in remote villages being recommended for identification as investment promotion areas, locals will have an easier access to the Industries Minister than to official of the IPB. This is a much needed comforter.
The onus is now on the Board to consider its decisions with added caution. The rules state “If the board considers the proposal to recommend the Government to demarcate a certain portion as an investment promotion area, then it should satisfy itself of the deserving nature of the proposal.
“The IPB must also satisfy itself after asserting material before itself that setting up of an industry in such area or overriding the provisions of a notified plan under the Town and Country Planning Act is absolutely necessary and in larger public interest,” the notification stated.
The words “larger public interest” are important. Now larger public interest, for an investment, will be an assessment of benefits to locals. Typically this will be seen from the prism of creating jobs. However “larger public interest” has to be beyond job creation. It should also be about access to water resources, the impact of ground water levels and on orchards, farms and plantations. The definition of “public interest” however should be calibrated by the locals and this definition should find resonance within the corridors of the IPB.
Above all, the notification of the rules is a sign, in election year, that industrialists and bureaucrats will have to play at least equal fiddle, if not second fiddle to politicians because the confidential reports of MLAs and not officers will be signed off by ordinary people of Goa, on election day.
