SÁVIO J.F. CORREIA
For decades, Goa has exported one of its most val uable resources without recording it in any trade statistics: its young people. Goan students qualify as engineers, software professionals, research ers, financial analysts and managers. Many still must move to Bengalu ru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune or overseas to build a career that matches their training. Migration by choice is one thing. Mi gration because no com parable opportunity ex ists at home is something else entirely. The proposed ‘Hello World’ Innovation & Re search Park at Verna is an attempt to change that. Goa missed most of In dia’s first technology wave. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune developed large technology economies, while Goa remained on the margins.
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A second opening is here now, as technology firms and Global Capability Centres (GCC) look beyond the usual metros. In next door Karnataka, Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi are being deliberately de veloped as destinations for this shift. Goa must decide whether it wants a place in it. That decision is not only about incentives or land price. A company setting up a captive cen tre or an R&D unit choos es a location the way a family chooses a neigh bourhood, on whether its people will want to live there. It needs office space it can occupy with out building from scratch, uninterrupted power and connectivity, and somewhere its relocating staff will accept as home: high-quality schools, col leges, healthcare, mobil ity, and an airport within reach. Goa never lacked skilled engineers or Eng lish-speaking graduates.
What it lacked is a cam pus built specifically for this kind of employer, in a place that already sells it self on quality of life. Clos ing that gap is the point of ‘Hello World’. ‘Hello World’ is pro posed on roughly 4.03 lakh square metres in the Verna Industrial Estate. Phase I offered six plots through public auction, reserved for research and development, GCCs, AI and emerging technolo gies, and data centres. At least 80 per cent of the built-up area is reserved for core office use by these sectors; commercial space is capped at 7 – 10 per cent. Goa IDC will create the enabling conditions, while private developers build the infrastructure, and technology firms then move into a complet ed campus rather than a construction site. Upon full development and occupancy, the project is expected to support around 35,000 highly skilled professionals. What matters most about that figure is not its size, but who is likely to fill it.
The people qualified for these roles, the very fields this park is built for, are disproportionately Goans already working in Ben galuru, Pune, Hyderabad, or abroad. For many of them, this would be the first time that ‘homecom ing’ would not also mean a pay cut or step down. Goa has been here before. Its pharmaceu tical industry struggled through the 1970s and 80s for want of infrastruc ture and industrial land. A five-year tax holiday an nounced in the 1993 Un ion budget, later extended, changed the arithmetic for investors, and major Indi an and multinational man ufacturers moved in. The financial incentive was not the whole story. Land, en trepreneurship and skilled workers mattered too, but it acted as catalyst. Today, approximately 12 per cent of India’s pharmaceutical exports originate from Goa, and the sector sup ports substantial direct and indirect employment.
To assess the tax holiday only in terms of revenue not collected would ignore the factories, exports, sal aries, skills and ancillary enterprises created over the following decades. An incentive is not automatically a loss. Its value depends on what it enables. Goa IDC is not a land trading enterprise. Its statutory purpose is to secure and assist the rap id and orderly establish ment of industries. Reve nue prudence is essential, but revenue maximisa tion is not its governing objective. ‘Hello World’ follows a similar logic, and it is worth being precise about what was done. The Goa IDC Board approved it as a special incentive scheme under the Goa IDC Regula tions, with a base price of ₹4000 per square metre fixed before bidding and offered on identical terms to every eligible partici pant. The opportunity was publicised nationally, in cluding through individual outreach to more than 450 developers and industry representatives.
No land has been sold; there are leasehold rights, tied to development obligations and end-use restrictions that Goa IDC continues to control. Any specific questions of the auction process deserve to be examined and corrected, if neces sary, on its own facts. The right response to a flawed step is to fix the step, not to abandon a project Goa has waited for decades. None of this guarantees 35000 jobs. That depends on timely construction, the ability to attract en terprises, the availability of skills and sustained ex ecution. These outcomes must be monitored. But refusing to build the eco system guarantees that nothing changes. The true return on ‘Hello World’ should be measured in the Goans who build serious careers without leaving home, the enterprises that set up here, the private capital that flows, and the small er businesses that grow around them.
Goa cannot recover the technology opportunities it missed over the last three decades. It can de cide whether it misses the next three. The project’s name says as much. In computing, “Hello, World!” is tradi tionally the first program anyone writes. It is the first sign that a new sys tem is ready to talk to the outside world. Through this park, Goa is making the same announcement to the technology sector. For Goan youth, that announcement should mean something more specific. They should be free to see the world yet not compelled to leave home to build a future. ‘Hello World’ should be Goa’s promise to the next generation that a serious career does not require a one-way ticket. (Sávio J.F. Correia is a practising advocate, PhD researcher at the India International University of Legal Education & Research (IIULER) – Goa, and a Director of Goa IDC.)
