It is not surprising that Goa amongst all States has recently slipped down from the 19th rank to 21st in the ease of doing business. To improve upon this abysmal show in the field of business and industry, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has taken up a task to make Goa one of the top three states in India on ease of doing business in the coming three years. However, with the speed with which the work is on, it still looks like a distant dream.
Goa being a small but highly literate State, with its State capital and district headquarters being less than an hour away from almost any point in the State, having the highest government servants to population ratio, having the second highest per capita income in the country, having the highest bank branches to population ratio and high level of computerisation of government departments, Goa could have easily done much better than what it has recorded. Without an improvement in our Ease of Doing Business ranking, Goa may not be able to attract the desired level of investments in the State.
In the year 2016 under the 98 Point Action Plan, Goa had implemented 21.74 percentage points and was placed at 19th rank. In the 2015-16, 340-point Business Reform Action Plan assessment, Goa is placed at 21st rank with a very poor implementation rate of only 18.15 per cent. Goa had implemented just 61 action points and 275 remain to be attempted. The overall rank is not so important. What is really worrisome is the abysmally low rate of implementation.
To set all things right, the single biggest reform will be to implement and install a single window system which will seamlessly integrate multitude of services offered across departments with regard to ease of doing business in Goa. This can only happen when all the major departments are online and are in a network. Also, cutting down on bureaucratic processes and archaic laws would immensely help as for an entrepreneur or a businessman it will be very clear what he has to do and within what timeframe things can happen.
Following this jolt, the government of Goa is now committed to upgrade this ranking to a much higher level and to its true potential. For this, in the month of September last year, Goa hired Ernst and Young Consultants to help them “clean” the system of at least 22 departments in the State, which led to this flak. The work is in progress and many departments have shown excellent cooperation too, barring a few which matters to the industry most. However, efforts are on to make those departments “online” and responsive.
Along with the technology, the mindset of the government employees too needs to be trained with an ingrained principle that government is primarily a facilitator and not a spoke in the wheel. Industry bodies have loads of complaints for “no action”, “no response” or even “delayed action” by several departments with which the industrialists have to interact with in almost a weekly basis. As it is said, time is money and business cannot wait for lackadaisical moves as accountability and return on investment is at a very high stake.
The recent April 4 decision to hike the land lease rent by GIDC which was challenged and called as “illegal” by nearly all industry bodies of the State has been deferred. This was done only when the industry bodies not only sent their representations to the department but also threatened to drag the department to the court. Such pussy footing steps by departments do not auger well in the business circles and industry and it will set a bad precedence for the coming years.
