PANJIM: Investment projects worth over Rs 5,400 crore, with a proposed employment potential of over 12,000 people, are pending for in-principle clearance before the Goa Investment Promotion Board (IPB). The absence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who heads the IPB, has taken a toll on the investment sector, with no meetings taking place in the last two months.
Since February, the Board has met just thrice, wherein nine projects with an investment of over Rs 800 crore were cleared.
As many as 55 projects – 39 hospitality and 16 industrial – with a proposed investment of Rs 5482.11crore are pending. Of the 55 projects, three are expansions in the hospitality sector, while the rest are new projects.
The proposed investment in the hospitality sector is around Rs 4,821.48 crore with an employment potential of 12,310 people with projects like setting up of resorts and spa, floating cottages, amusement park and entertainment centre, eco-tourism, star hotels, international convention centre, boutique hotel, etc.
There are nine projects that come under the purview of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), Eco Sensitive Zone and No Development Zone, that IPB has no powers to deal with. However, as per the provisions, IPB has to reject the proposals, but even this has not been done and they continue to figure in the list of pending proposals.
In the industrial sector, though all are in the medium and small scale group, the total investment is of Rs 660.63 crore and employment generation to 2,854 people.
The last meeting of IPB under Parrikar was held on July 28, wherein ten investment projects were discussed, of which five were rejected while five were deferred. Since then, no meeting has taken place. In the meantime, the government appointed Mumbai-based investment banker Vishal Prakash as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the IPB, last month.
“No meeting has taken place and all the proposals are pending. The investors have expressed their complete displeasure at the way IPB is functioning,” an industry source said, stating that the sub-committee, constituted of members to scrutinise applications before placing them before the Board, has also not met’.
IPB OSD Tulsidas Pai, replied tersely to an e-mail with queries sent by Herald. “The number of projects pending for approval of our Board are 15. Ten industrial projects and 5 in hospitality sector. Please find better sources for information on IPB. You seem to be misled every time,” he said, but failed to provide the status of the projects (the 55 Herald mentioned), when asked if we can share the list we have.
“Ever since Vishal Prakash joined us in August, he has been busy understanding how the government system works and providing a new direction to IPB. He has organised meetings of DITC’s Incentive Committee and GIDC’s Special Committee. He has also led the consultation on Logistics and Export Polices for Goa. Incidentally, all these meetings were attended by representatives of GCCI, CII and GSIA. The new CEO has completed quite a few tasks in his first two months at the helm,” Pai said.
As per the information provided by IPB in May, 26 projects with investment of Rs 2,141.66 crore were pending with them. Post this, two meetings have taken place on July 14 and 28, and only three projects with Rs 480 crore investment is been cleared.
An investor requesting anonymity told Herald that his proposal is pending for the last three months and it did not even come up during the meetings held in July. The investor further said that several projects, which have come up, are still waiting for power and water connections to start their units.
A Board member said the Chief Minister’s sudden illness has had a major impact on the functioning of IPB besides that of the State administration. “Several projects are pending. Since February, the IPB functioning has literally slowed down. Chief Minister used to take lot of interest to ensure IPB functions within the law and focus was on good projects,” the member said.
The Board has so far granted in-principle permissions to 173 projects with a total investment of over Rs 12,800 crores. Board has also revoked permission granted to 24 projects.
