The manufacturing sector has not been able to do well in the State primarily due to two reasons – the small market and the lack of raw materials. Both reasons have to do with the geographical size of the State. Goa is small, has a small population and so neither creates raw materials nor has many buyers. That is what we have been told for the past few decades. If these were constraints in the past, they cannot and should not be so any longer, for boundaries just do not exist in business in this age. And perhaps they won’t be as manufacturers look beyond their immediate area of production for their sales. There are also clear directions to the bureaucracy and policy makers to give a fillip to the manufacturing industry. The Make in India, Make in Goa concept may just begin to show a positive change in Goan business, but there are many hurdles on this road involving a lot of changes and this could perhaps lead to a new way of thinking that could bring about some policy changes.
Make in India came as a catchy slogan from the Central government, reverberating through the country and the countryside. Yet, mere sloganeering will not bring about a change in the manufacturing sector. The State has to play a major role in changing how the bureaucracy steps in to help entrepreneurs to set up manufacturing business. But it won’t be easy in Goa. The former President of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who is the current vice-president of the Manufacturers Association for Information Technology of India was right when he said that we can talk of Make in Goa only if India can become a good manufacturing hub. That is absolutely true, the moot question though is whether the State would be the right place to promote a Make in Goa concept. The State is more service oriented and so the focus here could actually be on the services industry rather than the manufacturing sector.
The manufacturing sector creates jobs, but it also requires large tracts of land, which the State has in limited quantity. Existing units in the State seeking to expand require land, and a number of the proposals that the Investment Promotion Board receives involves the conversion of green areas to commercial or industrial zones. At its last meeting the Investment Promotion Board deferred clearing four projects, three of them being in the hospitality industry, as it wanted to inspect the land where the projects have been proposed primarily because of the conversions involved. Given that previous conversions cleared by the board have not gone down well with the people, further land conversion may not be a great idea.
The fact is that Goa does not have a fixed policy in industry. It promotes or speaks of promoting whatever comes its way. About three years ago, the then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had announced that the government was considering making Goa a logistics hub and even decided to constitute a group to prepare a roadmap towards this aim. He had said this at a logistics conference in Goa. Nothing happened since then. In recent months there has been talk of promoting defence manufacturing in the State, an idea that came about after the Defence Expo in Goa in March this year. Policy cannot be formulated at the whims of politicians or depending on what events are occurring in the State at a particular point of time.
Policy needs sustained planning that comes from adequate past research, present status and future projections. Looking at all these, a services based industry is perhaps what could work out best for the State.
