PANJIM: A land crunch due to land already acquired for the scrapped Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects is why permission has been refused to many industry proposals, Industries Minister Mahadev Naik said on Friday.
Naik said the State was unable to act on several investment proposals from private business houses as a result of the land crunch, and this was having an impact on the industrial growth. He also said that they wanted to improve the employment situation in the State. Naik said with the case filed by the SEZ promoters now in the Supreme Court, there was little the government could do. He also did not want to comment as the matter was in the Supreme Court and hence sub-judice. He, however, argued that because of the land problem, the State’s industrial growth has been suffering.
The Investment Promotion Board earlier this week cleared 11 projects worth Rs 1,137 crore, dealing with agro, tourism and hospitality projects.
The previous Congress-led government had scrapped the Special Economic Zone policy in the State in 2008, after fierce protests by locals and severe indiction by the courts over the manner of the acquisition of land.
According to Naik, the Goa Industries Promotion Board had received 21 proposals, but they could clear only 11 because in many cases there was no land available for the projects.
The SEZ promoters that included Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd, Cipla group, Peninsular Pharma Research Ltd, Inox Mercantile Pvt Ltd and Maxgrow were allotted 32 lakh square metres of land. After the mass agitations, the companies were asked to halt all work in their allotted land within a year.
The companies then approached the court to appeal against the Goa government scrapping the SEZ policy.
This has been articulated even before by the former chief minister and present Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The government had even gone to the extent of saying that they were planning on cutting a deal with the promoters and giving them a part of the land and keeping the balance to be used for industrialization.
