TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Goa’s draft industrial policy that was officially unveiled on August 14 and submitted to the government seeks to encourage Indian and foreign investment (through co-development, joint ventures and co-production) defence product and component manufacturing, and Research & Development ventures in defence.
The policy released at a press conference Wednesday, once cleared, is slated to be kept open for public feedback. The task force headed by Atul Pai Kane was set up by the government to finalise the draft investment-cum-industrial policy aims to attract Rs 5,000 crore investment and generate 50,000 jobs over the next five years.
The State government vide a notification had decided to review and restructure the existing Goa Industrial Policy-2003 and constituted a Task Force Committee (TFC) for formulating the draft of the New Industrial/ Investment Policy-2013. The committee held deliberations with various stakeholders.
The policy envisages to accomplish its targets through private investment or through Public Private Partnership models.
Envisaging the coming up of proposed Mopa airport, the Government is targeting investments in aviation and aerospace Research & Development; engineering design and technology solutions; manufacturing of components; assembly and testing; and MRO facilities.
Stating that there is large scale procurement by the Defence Ministry and changes in the procurement policy, the Government of Goa wants Indian and foreign investments, through co-development, joint ventures and co-production, defence product and component
manufacturing, and Research & Development ventures in the defence space.
In a bid to promote the sector, the Government is planning on introducing courses on aviation, aerospace and defence in the educational institutions in Goa; construction of private terminals/jetties as well as improve infrastructure at existing jetties which can be utilized by the units for import of raw material and export of finished goods. The government also wishes to create a logistics hub including warehousing, container depot, cold storage facilities and linkage to port, road and rail infrastructure.
Another aspect is tourism. The Government wants to grant permissions to starred hotels, across categories, all totaling to a cumulative additional capacity of around 8,000 beds in the next five years with stress to be laid on creation of infrastructure and facilities to attract high-end visitors.
The objectives of this policy are to create 50,000 jobs in the next five years; facilitate Rs 25,000 crore new investment to Goa in the next five years; provide high quality logistics infrastructure to industries; providing 24×7 high-quality power supply and quality core infrastructure to industries; setting up an Investment Promotion Board and bringing clarity to roles and responsibilities of Goa IDC, EDC, DITC¸GEDC and GTDC.
The Investment Promotion Board is to develop a detailed framework for evaluating investment proposals based investment in thrust areas and existing investors in Goa; wants investors with good corporate governance standards and investments for environment friendly units and for backward talukas.
The investments are aimed to generate significant employment for Goans and with a higher ratio of employment generation to land requirement.
As a ‘Special Incentive’ for new investments and expansion of existing units in thrust areas, ‘Special Incentive’ of 70%/50% (backward talukas/other talukas respectively) on their total investment in the form of VAT rebate, employment rebate and stamp duty rebate are being offered.
